The Princeton Theological Review

FALL 2006 THEOLOGY AND GLOBAL CONFLICT: BEYOND JUST WAR

Prolegomena 3 Theology and Global Conflict: Beyond Just War by Han-luen Kantzer Komline Articles 5 The Labor of Communion in a Capital Age by Daniel Bell

11 A Certain Disavowal: The Pathos and Politics of Wonder by Mary-Jane Rubenstein

19 Just War and the New Community: The Witness of the Old Testament for Christians Today by Gordon Brubacher

Feature 31 An Interview with George Hunsinger by W. Travis McMaken

Reflections 39 Breaking the Chain of Antagonism and Conflict: A Reflection on Jankelevitch’s Works on Forgiveness by Hyun Soo Kim

41 How Can a Pastor Serve in the Armed Forces? by Mark Winward

43 The Sword that Christ Came to Bring: An Instance of Canonically Theological Exegesis by W. Travis McMaken

Book Reviews 45 Creston Davis, John Milbank, and Slavoj Zizek, Reviewed by Theology and the Political: The New Debate D.W. Congdon

45 Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation: Reviewed by How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church Jason Ingalls

46 Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith: Reviewed by Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence Matthew D. Porter

47 Mark Lewis Taylor, Religion, Politics, and the Christian Reviewed by Right: Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire Nicole Reibe

48 Marc Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation: Reviewed by The Challenge of the 21st Century W. Travis McMaken

49 Vincent E. Bacote, The Spirit in Public Theology: Reviewed by Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham Kuyper Rebecca Jordan Heys

Volume XII, Number 2 www.princetontheologicalreview.org Issue 35 he Princeton Theological Review is a student-run, semi- Executive Editor Tannual journal that exists to serve students within the Shelli Poe-Messner, M.Div. Senior Princeton Theological Seminary body as well as the wider theological community by providing a resource that challenges, General Editors informs and equips them to become more effective and faithful Han-luen Kantzer Komline, M.Div. Middler; witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is committed to engaging David Congdon, M.Div. Middler theological issues in ways that are grounded in Scripture, Book Review Editor centered on Jesus Christ, formed by the work of the Holy Spirit, and oriented toward the historic confessions and contemporary W. Travis McMaken, M.Div. Senior reflections of the church. Managing Editor of Subscriptions Contacting the Editors Adam Tietje, M.Div. Senior Your responses to the materials published in the PTR are a Managing Editor of Finances critical part of the journal’s success. We welcome and Meagan Cracraft, M.Div. Middler appreciate your ideas. Please send all correspondence to: Managing Editor of Publicity Executive Editor Laura Lyter, Dual Degree 1st Year The Princeton Theological Review Princeton Theological Seminary Managing Editor of Production P.O. Box 821 David Drebes, M.Div. Middler Princeton, NJ 08542 Associate Editors Reprinting from the PTR David Berge, M.Div. Junior If you want to photocopy material original from the PTR, Noah Carlson, M.Div. Middler please follow these guidelines: For personal use or use in Adam Eitel, M.Div. Junior congregations or classrooms, we grant permission for 50 copies Justin Farrell, M.Div. Junior to be made, provided the articles are distributed at no charge Colleen Nelson, M.Div. Junior and you include the following information: “Copyright (year) Christopher Terry Nelson, M.Div. Junior (author) Reprinted from The Princeton Theological Review.” David Komline, M.Div. Middler Subscription Inquiries Peter Kline, M.Div. Junior If you would like to become a new subscriber, renew your Brandon Frick, M.Div. Senior subscription, purchase a gift subscription, make a donation, or Christopher Griswald, M.Div. Junior change your address, please address your correspondence to the Managing Editor (Subscriptions). Editorial Advisory Board Subscription rates are $12 for students and seniors, $15 Rev. Raymond Cannata for individuals, and $25 for institutions in the U.S. Canadian Rev. Brian Ellison residents should add $5 to the preceding rates. All other foreign Dr. Timothy George residents should add $10 to the preceding rates. Dr. Joel Green Submitting to the PTR Rev. Karl Turner McClellan We welcome your contributions for consideration to be pub- Rev. Earl Palmer lished. We encourage you to submit articles as an attachment to Dr. Andrew Purves e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Cullen Story If you mail using the U.S. Postal Service, please send a hard Jonathon Brenner copy along with a disk to the General Editor at the address Ron Choong above. All submissions should be in final form. Dr. William Dembski The PTR reserves the right to edit all submissions before Darren Kennedy publication. Daniel Ledwith Dr. Jay Richards The Princeton Theological Review is a ministry of Gregory Valeriano the Theological Students’ Fellowship. The Princeton Faculty Advisory Board Theological Review is not an official publication of Dr. Ellen Charry Princeton Theological Seminary and the opinions Dr. Darrell Guder expressed in the PTR are not necessarily those of the Dr. Ulrich Mauser editors, the Theological Students’ Fellowship or Dr. Samuel Moffett Princeton Theological Seminary. PROLEGOMENA Theology and Global Conflict: Beyond Just War Han-luen Kantzer Komline General Editor

The prophet Jeremiah interpreted the three Babylonian pinnings of his activism against the U.S. government’s use of invasions of Judah leading up to the destruction of the temple torture, and offers advice to the next generation of ministers in 587 BCE as God’s judgment. God’s people had commit- as to how they might best equip themselves and their congre- ted “two evils” (Jer. 2:13): they had forsaken their God and gations to respond to issues of political and global conflict. they had turned elsewhere for sustenance and security. Jere- Reflections by two ordained ministers, Hyun-Soo Kim and miah’s lament over the fate of his disobedient people is still Mark Winward, further broaden the contexts in which the ours today: “We look for peace, but find no good, for a time theme of theology and global conflict is addressed in this of healing, but there is terror instead” (8:15). Each of the issue. Kim, an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church contributions in this issue on Theology and Global Conflict: of Korea, analyzes the Korean-Japanese conflict over the Beyond Just War offers a perspective on current situations of Japanese colonial government’s abuse of Korean “comfort global conflict. What unites these pieces is their effort, in the women.” Critically appropriating philosopher Vladimir Jan- tradition of Jeremiah, to challenge human thought, behavior, kelevitch’s writing on forgiveness, Kim proposes a biblically and structures in light of the word of God. grounded way forward in this international dilemma. United Daniel Bell, in his article “The Labor of Communion States Navy chaplain Mark Winward addresses an entirely in a Capital Age,” concentrates his critical analysis on the different context in a reflection entitled “How Can a Pastor structure of capitalism. Bell argues that Christians must Serve in the Armed Forces?” Winward answers this question resist the global extension of capitalism (built on conflict by explaining the theological convictions motivating him to and war) in favor of pursuing the kingdom of God (built on minister to those involved in armed global conflicts. Finally, communion with God and neighbor). Mary-Jane Ruben- W. Travis McMaken examines the meaning of Jesus’ state- stein focuses her critical lens on the American military. In ment “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. “A Certain Disavowal: The Pathos and Politics of Wonder,” 10:23) in his reflection, “The Sword that Christ Came to Rubenstein provides a whirlwind philosophical history of Bring: An Instance of Canonically Theological Exegesis.” the term “wonder,” advocating the recovery of wonder as Jeremiah’s lament in chapter eight, “We look for peace, “a ceaseless attunement to and critique of the uncanniness but find no good, for a time of healing, but there is terror in- of the everyday.” Rubenstein connects this kind of wonder stead” (v. 15), could today be the lament spoken by victims with the biblical notion of fear of the Lord, characterized in of an unjust economic system, innocent civilians who be- Job and Proverbs as the beginning of wisdom, and opposes come the casualties of war, prisoners tortured by American it to the deifying of the human subject as the source and ob- intelligence networks, battered Korean “comfort women” ject of wonder that drives “Shock and Awe” tactics. Gordon seeking justice, or even by soldiers in combat. Jeremiah’s Brubacher, professor of Old Testament at Messiah College, lament does not go unheard. In chapter thirty he receives addresses the ethical perplexity of the Old Testament witness another word: “Thus says the LORD: We have heard a cry on war in his article “Just War and the New Community: The of panic, of terror, and no peace” (v.5). God promises to Witness of the Old Testament for Christians Today,” suggest- respond: “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds ing, as indicated by the title of his article, how this witness I will heal, says the LORD” (v.17). may be instructive for Christians faced with contemporary In this advent season we remember the birth of the child global conflict. born to be our Prince of Peace. May the readings that fol- W. Travis McMaken’s interview with George Hunsinger low help us take to heart his words of encouragement to us: explores how a theology rooted in the biblical witness may “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not be brought to bear on situations of global conflict. In this in- give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be terview Hunsinger discusses some of the theological under- troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

• 3 •

The Labor of Communion In a Capital Age Daniel M. Bell

When we think of global conflict today, it is hardly surpris- of justice, which reduce economic justice to its commutative or ing that the global war on terror comes immediately to mind. contractual dimension or even deny that there is such a thing Since 9/11, we have been fed a steady diet of war and told that as social justice,2 Christianity has consistently proclaimed that such will be our fare for the foreseeable future. As significant as economies should be so ordered that they are especially geared this global conflict is, however, it has not succeeded in squelch- toward succoring the poor. Indeed, it is for this reason that both ing all other forms of conflict. Indeed, from time to time, flash- capitalism’s Christian advocates and critics agree that God opts es of another global conflict have poked through our television for the poor and so should we. As Amy Sherman, a Christian screens and pierced our iPod-secured solitude. Occasionally we advocate of capitalism, observes, “For Christians, opting for the glimpse a skirmish in the conflict over globalization. That, of poor is not optional; it is a clear command of Christ.”3 course, is a misnomer, for what is at issue is not simply an in- Unfortunately, debates regarding the efficacy of capitalism terdependent world versus an imaginary isolation or nostalgic in alleviating poverty are as endless as they are fruitless, which localization. Rather, is not to say that they what is contested is a do not have answers, particular regime of Christianity has consistently proclaimed that only that the answers globalization, a par- and evidences prof- ticular way of ordering economies should be so ordered that they are fered in such discus- relations, both human especially geared toward succoring the poor. sions rarely, if ever, and non-human, on a prove persuasive. Of global scale. Specifi- Indeed, it is for this reason that both capitalism’s course, recent geo-po- cally, what is at issue litical developments is the global extension Christian advocates and critics agree that God shed some light on at of capitalism. What is least one dimension resisted is what some opts for the poor and so should we. of this discussion with have celebrated as which it is difficult to “the end of history” and others have denounced as the imperial argue: Whatever the merits and faults of capitalism – and ev- advent of a virulent nihilistic capitalism.1 eryone, even the staunchest Christian proponent of capitalism, In what follows, I will suggest why Christians cannot join in recognizes capitalism falls short of the kingdom – Marxist so- this celebration, why we cannot but work for the end of the em- cialism is dead.4 The framing of the theological debate between pire of capital, and why we hope and pray that this capital time, socialism and capitalism has been rendered moot. this capital age, does not in fact mark the end of history. What are People For? I. CAPITALISM AND COMMUNION The interminable character of the empirical debates com- bined with the utter failure of socialism prompt us to pursue The typical debate over the moral legitimacy of capitalism 2. See, for example, Friedrich A Von Hayek, Law, Legislation and in Christian circles tends to revolve around questions of its effi- Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice (Chicago: Univer- cacy or lack thereof in addressing and eliminating poverty. Does sity of Chicago, 1978). capitalism reduce poverty and elevate the standard of living of the poor or does it perpetuate and exacerbate the suffering of the 3. Amy Sherman, Preferential Option: A Christian and Neoliberal Strategy for Latin America’s Poor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), destitute and impoverished? This standard of evaluation makes 219. theological sense. It makes sense, not the least because the bib- lical witness consistently puts precisely this question to individ- 4. I am careful to qualify my dismissal of socialism this way be- uals and economic orders. Unlike many contemporary accounts cause there are supernatural forms of socialism – by which I do not mean Christianized Marxist socialism – that avoid this critique and 1. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” in The National actually comport with my constructive argument. See, for example, Interest 16 (1989), 3-18; Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire John Milbank, Being Reconciled (New York: Routledge, 2003), 162- (Cambridge: Harvard, 2000); Franz Hinkelammert, El Grito del 186 and D. Stephen Long, Divine Economy (New York: Routledge, Sujeto, 3rd ed. (San Jose: DEI, 1998), 227-45. 2001). • 5 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 the question of capital from another angle that begins with the recognize.”66 This is to say, capitalism is problematic not sim- seemingly innocuous question, “What are people for?” Why are ply because it fails to work but because of what it does when it we here? What is our end or purpose? Augustine captured the succeeds. The problem with capitalism is that where it succeeds Christian tradition’s answer as well as anyone when he said, our human relations are ordered agonistically; they become a mat- hearts are restless until they rest in God. Or as Aquinas said, our ter of struggle, conflict and competition – all antithetical to the end is beatitude, blessedness, which is nothing less than friend- friendship or community to which we are called and for which ship with God. We are created to glorify and enjoy God. We are we were created. created for friendship, for communion. Of course this friendship is not merely a matter of me and Jesus or me and God. Scripture The Agony of Capitalism reminds us we cannot be friends of God if we hate our neighbors The agony of capitalism can be exposed by considering the (1 Jn 3:17; 1 Jn 4:20-1); hence, the commandments are summed kind of subject capitalism forms. Capitalism’s success hinges up in “Love God and neighbor” (Mt 22:35-40). upon the formation of a particular kind of human subject, one What, then, is the problem? Why are our hearts so clearly that relates to its environment in a certain way. For example, not at rest? Why can’t we as Michael Perelman all just get along? If we has shown, capitalism’s are created for friendship, The problem with capitalism is that where emergence was hindered why do we have to pray by a largely agrarian and for our enemies? Why it succeeds human relations are ordered cottage industry peoples’ do we live in fear of our refusal to permit their re- neighbors and constantly agonistically; they become a matter of lations with others, with look over our shoulder at struggle, conflict, and competition - all the land, and with them- the stranger? The Chris- selves to be reordered in tian tradition accounts for antithetical to the friendship or community capitalist fashion.77 this in terms of the Fall, Its Christian defend- i.e., sin. We were created to which we are called and for which we ers often laud capitalism for friendship with God for the kind of subject it and one another, yet in sin were created. fosters and describe that we struggle, fight, com- subject in terms of cre- pete (cf. Gen. 4-11). Now, sin is not merely a matter of disobe- ativity, inventiveness, independence, the self-interested pur- dience or breaking commandments. Rather, as the early church suit of personal happiness devoid of envy, cooperation, and so taught, sin is a matter of division, of the breach or rupture of forth.88 This rather rosy portrait is painted of what is widely communion. As Origen declared ubi peccata, ibi multitudo and acknowledged as the anthropological center of capitalism: Maximus the Confessor observed, our postlapsarian condition is homo economicus.9 Where it succeeds, capitalism forms human such that “now we rend each other like wild beasts.”5 subjects as individuals who are fundamentally self-interested, What has this to do with the so-called free market economy, whose relations (to themselves, creation, others and God) are with capitalism? Everything, for capitalism deforms and ob- competitive, conflicted, and contractual. structs our friendship with God, with other humans, and with Homo economicus is first and foremost an individual – inde- the rest of creation. In other words, the problem with capitalism pendent, autonomous, and self-made. Consider the shibboleths is not simply that it may not facilitate the ordering of material of capitalist culture: No one can tell me what to do or think. De- goods to their universal destination – the succoring of the needs pendency is a bad thing. The highest value is freedom as license, of all and especially the poor (cf. John Paul II, Centesimus An- as sheer naked choice. Examples of this abound, from commer- nus). The problem with capitalism is not simply that it may cial jingoes like “have it your way” and public policy debates not work, but that even if it does increase aggregate wealth, that, for example, revolve around not the quality of health care it is still wrong and to be opposed on the grounds of what it does to humans and human relations. As Alasdair MacIntyre 6. Alasdair MacIntyre, Marxism and Christianity, 2nd ed. (London: has noted, “although Christian indictments of capitalism have Duckworth, 1995), xiv. justly focused attention upon the wrongs done to the poor and 7. See Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism (Durham, the exploited, Christianity has to view any social and economic NC: Duke University Press, 2000). order that treats being or becoming rich as highly desirable as doing wrong to those who must not only accept its goals, but 8. See, for example, the work of Michael Novak. succeed in achieving them. . . . Capitalism is bad for those who 9. See Albert Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political succeed by its standards as well as for those who fail by them, Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton something that many preachers and theologians have failed to University Press, 1981); and Milton L. Myers, The Soul of Mod- ern Economic Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). 5. Cited in Henri DeLubac, Catholicism (San Francisco: Ignatius See also Samuel Gregg, Economic Thinking for the Theologically Press, 1988), 33-4. Minded (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001), 12-3. • 6 • Fall 2006 Daniel M. Bell but only whether or not I get to choose my doctor, to the not- tion of these interest-maximizing individuals quickly degenerat- so-subtle hostility directed toward “greedy geezers” who prove ing into Hobbes’ war of all against all. Here the oft-repeated incapable of adhering to the strictures of homo economicus. boast of capitalism’s advocates that economy tames bellicose One must be careful, however, not to misconstrue the indi- passions is pertinent. While one would be hard-pressed to make vidualistic nature of the capitalist subject. No one is finally au- a cogent empirical case that capitalism has reduced either the tonomous; we are all intrinsically interdependent and social and frequency or ferocity of war, it is true that capitalism does redi- capitalism’s advocates know this. So they argue that capitalism rect the clashing interests of homo economicus by means of the is about cooperation and community, competitive agony that is the “free” albeit cooperation and community of market. This is to say, capitalism does a peculiar sort – namely, the corpora- The God of capital becomes not promise an end to the agony of tion.10 Thus, when capitalism produces conflict but rather diverts the clash of individuals it is not producing isolated a cosmic sadistic Easter self-interested individuals in accord or solipsistic monads but subjects who with the golden rule of production for relate to other subjects in a particular bunny, creating insufficient the market. Capitalism, to play on way. To be an individual is to relate goods in order to prod or Clausewitz’s well-known aphorism, is to others in a particular, problematic war by other means. manner, something that will become stimulate the competitive Under the sign of utopian capital- clearer momentarily. ism – capitalism with a human face that The capitalist subject is not only juices that undergird our at least gave lip service to promoting an individual, but is fundamentally the common good of human develop- self-interested. Indeed, homo eco- creativity and productivity. ment – it was perhaps possible to over- nomicus is an interest-maximizer.11 look this global conflict as it slowly Here we might recall the well-known line from Adam Smith that engulfed the world, a possibility conveniently aided and abetted it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer or baker by the infamous abstraction of the discipline of economics. Yet, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own with the advent of nihilistic capitalism, of capitalism shorn of its interest. There is no substantive common good or shared pur- human face, this commercial war is ever more evident.12 We are pose (i.e., one more substantial than the utilitarian claim that the now submerged in an economy that is no longer concerned with good of all is served by self-interested individuals pursuing their the fiction of a mutually beneficial comparative advantage. The discordant private goods) that unites us. And it should be noted, charade of mutual advantage is dropped; instead, we seek com- Pareto optimality and market equilibrium are not the equivalent petitive advantage.13 All that matters is winning the war. of a substantive common good. Furthermore, efforts to discern and advance a thick common good can only result in disaster 12. It should be noted that this economic or commercial war is and tyranny. Thus, in a capitalist culture we are constantly re- not entirely distinct from traditional shooting wars, as the war on terrorism has made clear. For more on these matters, see Andrew minded to look out for #1, businesses are increasingly run with J. Bacevich, American Empire (Cambridge: Harvard, 2002); Franz an eye not toward public service but toward increasing the value Hinkelammert, “La caída de las torres,” Pasos 98 (Nov/Dec), 41-55; of the top executives’ stock holdings, our youth respond to que- Hinkelammert, “La proyección del monstruo: la conspiración terror- ries about why they want to do what they want to do with the ista mundial,” Pasos 101 (May/June 2002), 33-5; Germán Gutiérrez, mantra, “to make money,” and worship is framed in terms of “El ALCA y la guerra antiterrorista de George W Bush,” Pasos 98 how it can meet my needs and what I get out of it. (Nov/Dec 2001), 22-31; Germán Gutiérrez, “Fundamentalismo y Here we come to the heart of the matter. How does capi- sujeto,” Pasos 103 (Sept/Oct 2002), 17-28. talism construct human relations? How do capitalist subjects 13. See Michael Porter’s work, The Competitive Advantage of relate to one another? It is not difficult to imagine the interac- Nations (New York: Free Press, 1990) and On Competition (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard, 1998). Porter makes the perfunctory and standard claim that modern economics is not a zero-sum prac- 10. See Robert Bellah, et al. Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper tice. The importance of the shift from comparative to competitive & Row, 1986); Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon advantage is subtle. Comparative advantage rested on the principle & Schuster, 2001). See also the vast body of literature on rational that one should forgo an absolute advantage in favor of comparative choice, game theory, and institutions. When discussing these matters advantage, thereby preserving the opportunity of others to pursue with a former very successful manager at a large national corpora- and benefit from their comparative advantage in precisely those tion, she laughed and said that the corporation was indeed a kind areas where one may have an absolute advantage but comparative of community – one where even the office plants were distributed ac- disadvantage. Competitive advantage no longer preserves the space cording to a competitive logic, a sentiment that I have heard repeated for the other’s comparative advantage. Indeed, Porter is clear, at- many times from business persons. taining a competitive advantage may mean persisting in what under 11. Proponents of what is called “satisficing” in rational choice the older vision was a comparative disadvantage. In other words, theory dispute the maximizing character of the capitalist individual, competitive advantage no longer privileges and reserves a space but thus far they have not succeeded in dislodging the dominant of mutually advantageous comparative advantage. The practice of anthropology with its interest maximizing. some “big box” retailers of selling certain products at a loss in order • 7 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2

And this war is total war. As the capitalist market has be- are told that God did not create enough. Scarcity is a constant come total and totalitarian, as it has succeeded in penetrating threat. In this way, the God of capital becomes a cosmic sadis- every aspect of human life,14 everyone and every relation is sub- tic Easter bunny, creating insufficient goods in order to prod or merged in unending conflict that is capitalist market relations. stimulate the competitive juices that undergird our creativity and Thus, while we may not all succeed as consumers under global productivity. In other words, God hides stuff from us so that we capitalism – many are merely trying to survive – we all become – at least those who survive – will grow in the process of com- competitors, competing even with our closest relations for re- peting and struggling to find and create it. sources, employment, market share, assistance, for the time for In sum, the problem with capitalism is that it construes our family and friends and prayer. relations with one another and God in a manner that precludes One of the clearer indications of the capitalist distortion of genuine friendship and communion. Under capital, we relate human relations along these to one another competitive- lines is the way in which ly, agonistically, and God, everything and everyone Unlike the God of capital, who is either far from befriending us, far increasingly is treated like from seeking to deliver us a commodity – a fungible an absentee landord or a sadistic Easter from the sin-induced agony good valued only in terms of bunny, Christians confess the living God that is this struggle, in- how and how long it satisfies stead presides over it like a my interests. Thus, marriag- who even here and now in the midst of prison guard staging a gang es are seen as (short-term) fight. Thus, even if capital- contracts, children become the old age is actively inaugurating a ism works, it is still wrong consumer goods or accesso- because the agony it fosters ries, and our bodies are treat- new age, redeeming humanity from sin. and perpetuates among peo- ed like so much raw material ple and with God is antithet- to be exploited for pleasure or manufacture.15 And those objects ical to the true communion for which we were created, to which rendered worthless as commodities by obsolescence – the old we are called, and which Christians are empowered to proclaim and infirm – are discarded (warehoused or euthanized). and embody. To this communion, this economy, this ordering of Capitalism not only distorts the human subject and its rela- God’s household, we now turn. tions with others, it also distorts the character of God and God’s relation with humanity. On the one hand, God’s involvement in II. THE LABOR OF COMMUNION history is reduced to the workings of the market. This is to say, God is not involved in history now sanctifying or redeeming hu- The good news is that the civil war initiated with the Fall, manity from sin; rather all God is doing now is managing sin in and perpetuated by capital, has come to an end. Friendship with the hope that self-interest and the pursuit of private goods works one another and with God is again possible. The name for this out in the long run at least for the benefit of the majority. Indeed, friendship is the kingdom of God, where those who build inhab- some of capitalism’s Christian defenders come within a hair’s it, and those who plant harvest and eat, and all are filled as we breath of a deistic conception of God.16 On the other hand, we gather together – friends – at the heavenly banquet. The prob- lem is that we continue to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” which is to eliminate local competitors comes to mind here. but an acknowledgment that this kingdom is neither fully pres- 14. See C. B. Macpherson, The Rise and Fall of Economic Justice ent now nor is it finally something we can construct. and Other Essays (New York: Oxford, 1987). The Divine Gift Economy 15. On marriage, see Gary Becker’s reflections on marriage and chil- Does this mean that friendship is not possible, that the best dren in his The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1976). On children as consumer goods, see we can hope for are capitalist relations as a kind of lesser evil? Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of No, for the kingdom’s being not yet fully present is not synony- Chicago, 1982), 33. With respect to the reference to bodies as mere mous with its simply being absent. For unlike the God of capi- raw material for manufacture, I am thinking both of recent debates tal, who is either an absentee landlord or a sadistic Easter bunny, over stem cells as well as supreme court rulings that life forms are Christians confess the living God who even here and now in the simply chemical compounds that can be patented like any other midst of the old age is actively inaugurating a new age, redeem- manufacture. ing humanity from sin. The kingdom is already present. In this 16. In defense of this claim, I offer one of the more blatant examples, secular time between the times, this divine friendship appears in from Michael Novak: “The point of the Incarnation is to respect the the community called church. There we are befriended by God world as it is, . . . and to disbelieve any promises that the world is now or ever will be transformed into the city of God. . . . The world of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Touchstone, 1982), 341-3. is not going to become –ever– a kingdom of justice and love. . . . Although this may be one of the more extreme examples, Christian The single greatest temptation for Christians is to imagine that the advocates of capitalism all share a similarly constrained account of salvation won by Jesus has altered the human condition.” The Spirit the difference Christ makes here and now. • 8 • Fall 2006 Daniel M. Bell in Christ in a manner that (already) foreshadows the (not yet) manity is invited to participate in the divine gift economy where consummation of the world’s befriending. There, through the we are redeemed from the agony of sin and human relations are means of grace, we are redeemed and sanctified. There, under the renewed in a christological pattern of offering, sharing, gift-giv- influence of Word and water, bread and wine, homo economicus ing, cooperation, and ceaseless generosity. In Christ, we can be dies and a new creation, a new subject is Spirit-formed. Unlike friends, giving, and receiving the gifts that sustain life. its capitalist counterpart, this is a corporate, ecclesial subject that is neither self-interested nor relates to others as commodities in The Works of Mercy an endless (business) cycle of competition and conflict driven At this point, one might press this account of Christian op- by scarcity but instead participates in the divine gift economy of position to capitalism to flee from the abstraction that is known abundance and ceaseless to plague economics and get concrete. That generosity. is to say, what concretely does this divine gift This redeemed subject Under the influence of the economy look like? Is it simply opposed to is not an individual. It is Word and water, bread and the business of the production and market- rather a constellation of ing of goods? The answer is “no.” Christian persons in communion, a wine, homo economicus dies and opposition to capitalism is not a matter of corporate, ecclesial subject categorically rejecting the production, distri- called the body of Christ. a new creation, a new subject is bution, and consumption of goods, nor does Moreover, this subject is it entail the rejection of the market in toto.17 creaturely, which means Spirit-formed. To the contrary, the economy constituted that it is fundamentally by the life of the ecclesial subject outlined dependent on God and others. Manna spoils; food cannot be above encompasses all of those practices. And contrary to the stored in barns; goods rust; the Eucharist is our daily bread. De- commonplace that one cannot discern an economy in Scripture, pendency upon and responsibility for others is a principal char- in fact Scripture is replete with practices that constitute this di- acteristic of this subject (Gal. 6:2). vine economy. From the prohibition of interest, to gleaning and The concomitant of this mutuality is the shared love or com- the jubilee years, from the expectation of a living wage to hospi- mon good that unites these persons in communion. Specifically, tality to the community of goods, to the exhortation to labor, and this ecclesial subject seeks a common, shared good that is noth- so forth we see the contours of the divine economy. ing other than the friendship of all in the blessed Trinity. In While a detailed study of Scripture would take us far in this regard, the Christian subject is not fundamentally self-inter- discerning the shape of this divine economy and merely repeat ested. After all, the gospel is clear the promis- that we can do nothing to advance ing work our interest; we are saved by grace. The Christian subject is not fundamentally of others, I Indeed, until recently the Christian self-interested. After all, the gospel is clear want briefly tradition was uniform in denounc- to call atten- ing the seeking our own advantage that we can do nothing to advance our interest; tion to a set as sin (1 Cor. 10:24; Phil. 2:3-4; of econom- Rom. 12:1-2.). Instead, as a recipi- we are saved by grace. ic practices ent of the gift of life in Christ, the that are not Christian is freed to live life as a surplus, as Christ to one an- as well known, particularly in Protestant circles, that grew out other, as Luther had it. The Christian subject lives life as a gift of the biblical witness and have been sustained through the ages, to be given freely to and for others, without fear finally of loss namely, the Works of Mercy. (Luke 9:24, Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31). The Works of Mercy, consisting of seven corporal and seven It is important to note that the ecclesial subject can live this spiritual works, provide an outline of an economic way of life, way because we confess a God who provides, who sustains, who a way of ordering material goods, that nurtures the friendship created enough. In other words, scarcity is not a natural condi- or communion of all in God. In other words, in these practices tion, much less a God-ordained goad to competition; it is the and in the life of the community that sustains such practices, we contingent consequence of sin. In Christ we receive all that we see an economy that is neither predicated upon nor sustained by could possibly need – even the power of resurrection – such that endless conflict. This is an economy inhabited by the ecclesial we are indeed freed to live life as a gift, ceaselessly giving to subject whose form was traced above. It is an economy of gift- (and receiving from) others. exchange that is made possible by friendship – first and fore- All of which means that capitalism is not realistic, but nihil- most God’s befriending us, but also our befriending one another istic – denying God’s sanctifying presence here and now – and – and whose goal is the extension of that friendship to include that human relations need not be a matter of war, of struggle and conflict (barely) managed by the capitalist market. Rather, in 17. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Christ we have an opportunity to live in peace. In Christ, hu- Press, 1957), for a brief history of the market. See also Macpherson, The Rise and Fall of Economic Justice and Other Essays. • 9 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2

(all) others. more sparse, thereby undercutting its spiritual and temporal au- Granted, under the pressure of modernity, which privatizes thority. and individualizes such works, practices like feeding the hun- gry, harboring the stranger, admonishing the sinner, and bear- * * * ing wrongs patiently, hardly appear to constitute an economy. At best, they look to us modern capitalist subjects like a hobby We are told by the secular lords and their priests that the called philanthropy. But with a little (redeemed) imagination, end of history has come upon us in capitalism, even the nihilis- we might begin to see how a community that engaged in such tic capitalism that, apart from the cynical propaganda of those practices would in fact be about economic things and how these same lords’ speech writers and the pages of those same priests’ acts would entail systemic and not just individual practices. In- treatises, no longer even bothers with the pretense of the utopian deed, although they often pass “under the radar,” this economy dream of mutual benefit. But these lords and their priests are too exists even now, even in the midst of the global capitalist econ- late and their words can gain no traction, for the end of history omy, in a variety of forms, from intentional communities and has already appeared. As Paul announced long ago, we are the cooperatives, to efforts to explore and enact alternative markets ones on whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Cor. 10:11). and business models, to efforts like the Jubilee campaign to re- In the church, the body of Christ, the divine economy is making sist and reorder global capital. its way in this world. Through this ecclesial subject’s labor of If this seems far-fetched, consider that Adam Smith, in his mercy announcing and enacting the possibility of a community Wealth of Nations, observed that it was the church’s practice of of goods, a communion where all are sustained by the eternal the Works of Mercy (specifically charity in the form of almsgiv- generosity of the divine bounty, homo economicus is being re- ing and hospitality) that posed the greatest threat to the emer- deemed from the fetters of the “free market” and the agony of gence of the so-called free market and he rejoiced that capital endless war. So, even now capitalist globalization is giving way was able to break the back of the church, rendering its charity before the catholicism of grace that is mercy’s gift and labor.

The Rev. Dr. Daniel M. Bell Jr. is Associate Professor of Theological Ethics at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.

• 10 • A Certain Disavowal: The Pathos and Politics of Wonder Mary-Jane Rubenstein

At this moment, three years into the latest military campaign unresolved, concluding with Socrates telling Theaetetus that calculated to decimate “the cradle of civilization,” it seems ap- at least he will have learned the good sense to “not think you propriate to take a moment to reflect upon the broad phenom- know what you don’t know” (210c). All told, this dialogue enon of filial ambivalence. does little more than slip The most infamous student away from itself … and this of the violence exacted upon The idea behind Shock and Awe is to seems to be the whole idea. origins is, of course, Sigmund demonstrate that it would be as impossible The point is that there is no Freud, who culled together point; that knowledge rests diverse literary, clinical, and to refuse to comply with the United States on something fundamental- ethnographic resources in ly unknowable, because its order to describe a puzzling military as it would be to resist the object, also its condition of tendency—for him both phy- shatterer of worlds, or to switch gods, to possibility, is totally inscru- logenic and ontogenic—to table. Knowledge cannot destroy and incorporate gods reject a commandment given in a pillar of know what it is to know. It and fathers. In this article, is enough to drive a person however, I would like to call cloud and fire. mad. attention to a particularly Socrates is well aware controversial affective ancestor, and to some implications, both of this, telling Theaetetus that his midwifery frequently reduces theological and political, of its own disavowal and introjection otherwise intelligent, manly young men to “get savage with at the hands of its offspring. [him], like a mother over her first-born child. “Do you know,” he continues, “people have often before now got into such a state * * * with me as to be literally ready to bite when I take away some nonsense or other from them” (151c). Theaetetus, however, is It is a familiar scene: Socrates poses a characteristic “what different. During the course of his conversation with Socrates, is” to a bright young pupil, who responds with a number of he provides three perfectly respectable doxai concerning the es- theories that each turn out to be philosophically insubstantial. sence of knowledge, only to witness their inexorable dissolution Suddenly, the interlocutor realizes he does not know the first under maieutic scrutiny. Everything Theaetetus thought he knew thing about concepts he had thought he understood instinc- about knowing becomes strange and insubstantial, but rather than tively—like wisdom, justice, virtue, or, in the case of a young get angry or violent, he exclaims, “By the gods, Socrates, I am man named Theaetetus, knowledge itself. “I have a small dif- lost in wonder when I think of all these things, and sometimes ficulty,” Socrates tells Theaetetus, “which I think ought to be in- when I regard them it really makes my head swim” (155d).2 vestigated.”1 Socrates confesses that while he continues to gain The word for “I wonder” here is thaumazô, whose infini- knowledge of music, geometry, and astronomy, he “can’t get a tive is thaumazein, which is often nominalized in English into proper grasp on what knowledge [epistêmê] really is” (145e). In response to Socrates’ persistent questioning, Theaetetus sets 2. Plato, Theaetetus, trans. Harold North Fowler, in vol. 7, forth a few common-sense definitions of knowledge, but the Works: Plato, with an English Translation, The Loeb Clas- “midwife of the mind” judges none of these ideas to be worthy sical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, of being born, because each relies upon a prior understanding of 1996), 155c. The Greek text is: Kai nê tous theous ge, ô knowledge, which remains undefined. Sôkrates hyperphuôs ôs thaumazô ti pot esti tauta, kai eniote Like so many other Platonic dialogues, this one remains ôs alêthôs Blepôn eis auta skotodiniô. Because of its retention of Theaetetus’ invocation of the gods, as well as the sense of 1. Plato, Theaetetus, trans. M. J. Levett and Myles Burnyeat disorientation (rather than glee) that it conveys, the Fowler (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), 145d. translation is preferable, at least for these purposes, to Le- Subsequent references to this translation of the Theaetetus vett’s and Burnyeat’s, which reads, “Oh yes, indeed, Socrates, will be cited internally. References to other translations will I often wonder like mad what these things can mean; some- be noted. times when I’m looking at them I begin to feel quite giddy.” • 11 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 wonder, awe, astonishment, or amazement. Wonder strikes The- But among all the inscrutable objects, concepts, and pro- aetetus as he loses his grasp on notions that had seemed utterly cesses one might name, wonder is singularly elusive, and for self-evident, sending him reeling, his head spinning. At least as two reasons. First, there is the above-mentioned problem of it takes shape throughout this passage, then, wonder has very wonder’s irreducible anteriority. Wonder’s sheer designation as little to do with the calm pleasure with which contemporary us- “origin” provokes a certain degree of epistemological tail-chas- age tends to associate it. Rather, it is a dizzying, vertiginous, ing, as thinking tries to think that which gets thinking going in and destabilizing experience. And rather than telling Theaetetus the first place. But there is something at once less lofty and less to gird up his loins and get back to the work of clear thinking, ridiculous at work as well, which is quite simply that wonder is Socrates says that this bodes well for the young man’s future uncomfortable. One tends to have a fairly low threshold for it: career as a philosopher. “For this is an experience which is char- I can spend perhaps five minutes desubstantializing any given acteristic of a philosopher, this wondering,” he exclaims, “this is table, but then would generally prefer just to put my coffee cup where philosophy begins and nowhere else” (155d).3 down on it and get on with the day’s work. As it turns out, philosophy’s beginning in wonder is both In fact, depending on its source and duration, wonder can a curse and a blessing for anyone who would go about trying be not only unsettling, but downright terrifying: to turn for a to figure out what wonder is. For moment from Athens to Jerusalem, while “the origin of all philosophy” one might think of the “signs,” would seem to make a perfectly Wonder has very little to do “wonders,” and “great terrors” that respectable object of philosophical with the calm pleasure with God performs to deliver the Isra- inquiry, it has a tendency to launch elites out of Egypt.5 God turns the its interrogator immediately into a which contemporary usage Nile to blood; sends frogs, gnats, pseudo-tautological questioning of flies, boils, hail; and finally kills how philosophy, which is not itself tends to associate it. Rather, it the Egyptians’ first-born sons, all without wonder, is supposed to go in order to teach the Israelites to about examining the very wonder is a dizzying, vertiginous, and “fear” God. Unfortunately for the that gets it going in the first place. Egyptians, it is only after the ten Following Socrates’s lead, it has al- destabilizing experience. plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, ways been the work of philosophy and the drowning of the Pharaoh’s to ask “what is.” So, as John Sallis has pointed out, the problem army that Exodus tells us, for the first time, “and the people with asking what wonder is, is that “the question comes too late. feared the Lord.”6 The word for “fear” in this context is yare’; For when one comes to ask the philosophical question ‘What the noun derived from it is yir’ah, and it designates that particu- is…?’ (‘ti esti…?’), one moves already within the opening [of larly biblical combination of awe, reverence, and abject horror philosophy]; and wonder has already come into play in prompt- in the face of a God who totally exceeds—yet at the same time ing that opening.”4 How does one ask, “what is wonder,” when constitutes—human understanding. In a moment of astonishing it is wonder that prompts one to ask “what is” in the first place? consonance with Socrates, the books of Proverbs, Job, and the This sort of puzzle, to make matters even more complicated, is Psalms all designate this terrified wonder as the beginning of precisely the sort of dilemma that gives rise to wonder. What- wisdom (chokmah, which becomes sophia in the Septuagint).7 ever it is, it strikes when the understanding cannot master that Yet as the Hebrew Bible teaches again and again as God’s cho- which it presupposes; that which lies closest to it. sen people fail to fear God properly (making idols, gathering To appeal to everybody’s favorite example, one tends to too much manna, kvetching about how hot and dry the desert think one knows what a table is. But the minute a good Buddhist is) this particular complex of emotion is marvelously difficult to philosopher asks what a table is—whether a table has four legs, sustain. Intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, it is easier to or whether it can have two legs, or one, or twelve; and how a run from wonder, or to close it down, than to remain with it. table is different from a stool; and whether this table would still Back in Athens, even Socrates domesticates wonder from be a table if I cut half of it off, or removed the top, or flipped time to time, most notably at the very moment he introduces it upside-down—one comes to realize one has no idea what a wonder as the origin of all philosophy. “This is an experience table is. Thinking finds itself lost in wonder when it suddenly which is characteristic of a philosopher, this wondering,” becomes impossible—and for that reason, imperative—to un- Socrates tells Theaetetus, “this is where philosophy begins and derstand something totally ordinary: like a table. Like knowl- nowhere else.” The quotation continues, “And the man who edge. Like wonder. made Iris the child of Thaumas was perhaps no bad genealo-

5 Deuteronomy 4:34. The words in Hebrew are ‘owth, mow- 3 ou gar allê archê philosophias ê autê, kai eoiken ho tên logein. pheth, and mowra’, a derivative of yare’, which designates a complex of fear and awe. 4 John Sallis, “A Wonder that One Could Never Aspire to Sur- pass…” in The Path of Archaic Thinking, ed. Kenneth Maly 6 Exodus 14:31. (New York: SUNY Albany, 1995), 255. 7 Proverbs 1:7, Psalm 111:10, Job 28:28. • 12 • Fall 2006 Mary-Jane Rubenstein gist—But aren’t you beginning to see…the explanation of these which more “proper” philosophy takes pains to secure itself. puzzles, according…to Protagoras?” (155d). All of a sudden, And it takes considerable pains. After all, especially as Eu- Socrates leaps from the genealogy of Thaumas, or “wonder,” ropean thought makes its way into the early modern period, it is the sea-god, to the game-theory of Protagoras. This strange gap, philosophy’s job to know—to categorize, systematize, separate marked in a number of translations by a dash—seems to indicate good from evil, find criteria of truth—and wonder’s persistent that Socrates is leaving something out of his genealogy. And in attunement to the bottomlessness of knowledge severely inhibits fact, he is. any such projects. As the origin of philosophy, however, it is According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Thaumas the wondergod wonder that sets these projects in motion in the first place. So is the son of Gaia (earth) and Oceanus (sea). Thaumas mar- the Western philosophical tradition develops a staggeringly am- ries Electra, and their union produces Iris (rainbow), who races bivalent relationship to this mood. A bit of wonder is necessary between the divine and human to get thinking off the ground, realms as a sign of the favor of but too much of it begins to the gods. Socrates commends this As both Descartes and Augustine look like ignorance, or childish- part of the story. What Socrates ness, or worse, femininity. The does not say, however, is that Iris demonstrate, the self can only self-professed heirs to Plato and is not the only child of this union. gather itself together and become Socrates therefore devise various The passage in Hesiod reads as strategies to ensure that wonder follows: “And Thaumas married a godlike, noetically inviolable is eventually overcome by the deep-flowing Ocean’s/ Daughter, philosophy it engenders. Elektra, who bore swift Iris and/ monad once wonder is A simultaneous avowal The rich-haired Harpies, Aello and disavowal of wonder can and Oypetes,/ Who keep pace out of the way. be found as early as Aristotle’s with stormwinds and birds/ Fly- Metaphysics, which concedes ing their missions on wings swift as time.”8 When Socrates tells that the philosopher begins by wondering at simple things, but Theaetetus that wonder gives birth to Iris, then, he neglects to insists that the moment he learns the cause of each puzzling mention that Wonder’s other daughters are the Harpies. Like phenomenon, his wonder at it will cease. The philosopher pro- their sister, these winged creatures are employed as inter-cos- gresses from an initiatory wonder into what Aristotle calls “the mic messengers, carrying humans off to the underworld. Hesiod better state, as is the case in these instances when men learn the himself does not convey any particularly repellant characteris- cause,”10 proceeding in this wonder-eclipsing fashion up to the tics in relation to these creatures, but by Plato’s time, classicist stars, through the intellects, and ultimately to certain knowledge David Kravitz tells us that the Harpies were thought of as “ugly of the First Cause. Aristotelian thaumazein, one might say, seeks bird-like monsters with large claws.”9 Apparently, they smelled the very resolution that Socratic thaumazein struggles to resist; revolting, and when they weren’t hauling people off to Hades, for all the way up the ontological chain, causal knowledge grad- they were sent upon unwitting humans to peck at them and steal ually replaces the very wonder that conditions its possibility. their food, as a sign of the gods’ disfavor. Even in the process of Perhaps the most fascinating working-out of this filial am- claiming wonder as the origin of all philosophy, then, Socrates bivalence comes from René Descartes. Descartes has fallen out only avows half of wonder’s progeny, excluding the ominous for of favor among contemporary continental philosophers and the sake of the amazing, and then covering his tracks by chang- theologians alike, thanks to his installation of an autonomous, ing the subject. thinking “self” and a bloodless, conceptual “God” as reflexive If thinking were to dwell in the pathos of wonder, then, it stop-gaps, meant to keep the philosopher’s clear and distinct would have to give up all efforts to purify itself of horror; to open ideas from draining into some vast sea of doubt and unknowing. itself to rainbows and Harpies, the redemptive and the ruinous, In a treatise called The Passions of the Soul, Descartes catego- alike. Following the philo-theological traces of wonder’s awe- rizes every major human emotion, and locates the origin of all some, awful primordiality, thinking finds itself in the ambivalent of them in wonder, or l’admiration.11 Wonder is afforded this nether-regions of Burke’s (and Kant’s) sublime, Pascal’s abys- privileged position not only because Descartes is a good son of mal awe, Otto’s numinous, Blanchot’s disaster, Lacan’s real, the ancients, but also because it is the only passion that precedes Kristeva’s abject, Kierkegaard’s horror religiosus. The question the distinction between good and evil. Descartes calls wonder a of wonder opens the fascinating/repulsive, creative/destructive, “sudden surprise of the soul,” which strikes a person before he astounding/horrifying, heirophanic/monstrous excess against 10 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Complete Works of Aristo- 8 Hesiod, Theogony, trans. Stanley Lombardo, in Works and tle: Revised Oxford Translation, vol. 2, ed. Jonathan Barnes Days and Theogony (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com- (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 983a. pany, 1993), 68. 11 René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, trans. Stephen 9 David Kravitz, “Harpies,” in Who’s Who in Greek and Ro- H. Voss (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, man Mythology (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975), 111. 1989). • 13 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 has the chance to discern whether the wondrous object is help- Twelve centuries earlier, St. Augustine had warned against ful or harmful—whether it is out to save or destroy him. Once precisely this sort of self-deification among those who seek to this judgment is made, wonder gives way to anger, joy, hope, appropriate wonder. Augustine was particularly concerned with love, or fear. But wonder itself remains a passion of and for the the work of astrologers who, unwilling merely to marvel at the indeterminate. celestial bodies, set out to chart and predict their courses. Au- Descartes is therefore insistent that we free ourselves of gustine admits that God has given them this ability in the first l’admiration as quickly as possible, using it only as a temporary place. The problem is that they themselves admit this, attribut- goad toward certain knowledge of things. He admits that a bit ing to themselves the power and wisdom that belongs to God of wonder is “useful” insofar as it alone.17 By mastering the most mysterious exposes the soul to something un- realm of creation, those who examine the known. In fact, he goes so far as to What is the use of trying stars make themselves into gods—not only say that those who are not at all dis- in their own estimation, but also in the eyes posed toward wonder “are ordinarily to re-open the wonder of the common people who are “amazed and very ignorant.”12 That having been that metaphysics closes if stupefied” by the astrologers’ foresight, and said, Descartes believes that too lit- who proceed to direct toward human beings tle wonder is a far smaller problem wonder blinds thinking to the wonder (admiratio) of which God alone than too much wonder, which he should be the object.18 calls astonishment (l’estonnement). the everyday world? As well-trod a critical path as this is, it “Astonishment,” Descartes writes, is important to highlight once again the per- “is an excess of wonder which can never be anything but bad.”13 sistent symmetry between the self-identical, self-mastering self Descartes therefore recommends that young philosophers calcu- and its self-identical, other-mastering God. Furthermore, as both late the causes of everything that strikes them as marvelous, so Descartes and Augustine demonstrate, the self can only gather that their wonder might be closed off into itself together and become a the kind of certainty that secures the sover- godlike, noetically inviolable eign subject, in God’s sovereign image. While a certain shock with- monad once wonder is out of Such a practice was not limited to the way. So with subjectiv- young Cartesians. As it happened, the stands the sudden departure ity, and indeed divinity, in the amassment and cataloguing Descartes rec- of everything that is, awe balance, it is not surprising ommended was being performed in earnest that Western philosophy can’t response to the influx of wondrous things watches, in the midst of the quite handle the wonder that from the trade routes into the so-called New gets it going. Wonder, after all, World, Asia, and Africa. This collection of impossible, for the arrival of reveals the fundamental insta- curiosities was systematized by Francis Ba- bility of all the would-be ob- con, who called wonder a kind of “broken the unexpected. jects of cogitatio from which knowledge,”14 dispatching a small army of the thinking self would get its scientists to collect and discover the causes of every bizarre ob- bearings, its certainty. Yet origins die hard, and so philosophy ject and creature in the world. As a young man, Bacon told an does not so much excise wonder as it does internalize it, making imaginary prince in a moot court that the best way to gain sover- itself the source and object of wonder. “Like God in a way.” eignty over his people was to keep a collection of wondrous ob- jects, and to learn their secrets, so that “when all other miracles * * * and wonders cease by reason that you should have discovered their natural causes, yourself shall be left the only miracle and The question that remains, then, is this: what would it take wonder of the world.”15 Similarly, Descartes assures us that once to sustain the wonder that is inimical to the formation of the sov- “we” have physically and noetically mastered all that is won- ereign human subject—to remain with the wonder that Western drous, “we” will become “masters of ourselves…like God in a philosophy has fled for so long? What would it mean to keep way.”16 thinking within the sort of shocked unknowing that sets it in motion in the first place? And, perhaps most pressingly, would a 12 Ibid., A70, A75. sustained philosophical wonder even be a good idea? 13 Ibid., A73. The narrative offered far too quickly here, of wonder’s death-by-internalization at the hands of its progeny, is certainly 14 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. Michael not without its exceptions. Like everything thinking represses, Kiernan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000). 15 Bacon, cited in Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of 17 Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Owen Chadwick Nature: 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 2001), 290. (Oxford: Oxford Press, 1998), 5.3.5; emphasis added. 16 Descartes, Passions, A152. 18 Ibid., 5.4.4. • 14 • Fall 2006 Mary-Jane Rubenstein the ghost of thaumazein has haunted this progressively master- In an essay written for Heidegger’s eightieth birthday, Ar- ful tradition, returning now and again at the bidding of some endt ranks Heidegger with the greatest philosophical giants of poet, mystic, or misfit to rattle the floorboards of the house of all time, even likening him to Plato. She goes on to say that philosophy. Hildegard, Eckhart, Bonaventure, Kierkegaard, those of us who would like to follow such powerful thinkers hit Goethe. But it could be argued that the one such conjurer who considerable stumbling-blocks when we realize they often make finally got Western thought to listen to and for the ghost of thau- disastrous political decisions. Akin to, but far worse than, Plato’s mazein was a Catholic theologian-turned secular philosopher attempt to teach philosophy to Dionysus, the tyrant of Syracuse named Martin Heidegger, who famously locates a kind of parri- in 362 B.C.E., was Heidegger’s commitment in 1933 C.E. to cidal tendency within Western metaphysics. For Heidegger, the National Socialism, a commitment which Arendt, interestingly entire heritage built upon the question “what is” hasn’t got a clue enough, attributes to an excess of wonder. Wonder, she argues, what “is” is. Rather, for the last is just supposed to be a tem- twenty-three or -four centuries, Holding itself back in Verhaltenheit, porary goad—a “leaping a progressively objectifying spark”—that disorients the thought has been stockpiling thinking exposes itself to the sudden thinker momentarily in order bits of calculable knowledge to set her on a course to sur- about beings, closing itself off uncanniness of everything it thought it er knowledge. Heidegger’s to the incalculable event of be- mistake, she explains, was ing itself. The reason philoso- knew: ideas, objects, and the thinking his “taking up and accepting phy does not question being self itself. This vertigo then gives way this faculty of wondering as is that it thinks it has already [his] abode.”19 Had he only mastered it. After all, the word to a kind of awe that anything can be taken his vision away from is used all the time—I am, you the philosophical clouds, she are, the table is—who (aside at all. suggests, he would have seen from a disgruntled philosopher the dangers beneath his all- or disgraced politician) would ever think to ask what “is” is? So too-human feet. But he was too hell-bent on the coming of some for Heidegger, restoring thinking to its proper purview is a mat- metaphysical revolution to notice the deportations, the store- ter of getting thinking to realize that the amassing and catalogu- fronts, the yellow stars, the burning of the temples. Heidegger, ing of objects only further estranges them from that which is-es she says, is like the would-be philosopher-king of Plato’s cave, them in the first place. Or, as Heidegger puts it in his later work, hauled out of the everyday into the dazzling world of the Forms that being has abandoned beings to the forces of calculation and only to return to the cave with his eyesight ruined, unable to re- representation. adjust his vision to the dark. Above all else, Heidegger is concerned to get back behind At the risk of sounding glib, this poses a serious problem. this state of affairs to a thinking attuned to the being that aban- Drawing a line of direct causation between Heidegger’s won- dons it. While his style (not to mention his vocabulary) makes der and Heidegger’s Nazism, Arendt’s critique leads this reader, a number of dramatic shifts, Heidegger is looking in each of his at least, to wonder whether Aristotle and Bacon and Descartes writings for a mood that might place thinking back into being’s knew what they were doing when they reigned in thaumazein to furious withdrawal and hold it there. And insofar as this mood secure the thinking self. What is the use of trying to re-open the will have to recognize and endure the sudden strangeness and wonder that metaphysics closes if wonder blinds thinking to the indeterminacy of being—the most common stuff of all—the everyday world? best candidate for the job looks a lot like wonder. But before It might at this point be instructive to look to Heidegger’s announcing the advent or withdrawal of some “wonderstruck own understanding of wonder. While he re-formulates thau- philosophy,” or worse yet, a “philosophy of wonder,” it might be mazein a number of times throughout his authorship, a particu- prudent to ask whether or not wonder is a good place for think- larly compelling rendition can be found in a concept Heidegger ing to be lodged, primordial or not. thought too dangerous to discuss openly, deleting it from his In the Theaetetus, Socrates characterizes typical philoso- lectures and only addressing it directly in work he knew would phers as perfectly hopeless in daily affairs. A philosopher will be published posthumously. In these materials, Heidegger en- simply have to be excused, Socrates says, if he has no idea how treats anyone who knows about it to stay silent about it; so at to get to the marketplace, or where the courts are, or who is the risk of incurring the wrath of the last god, the mood is called running for public office, or how to make a bed. He goes on to Verhaltenheit, holding back-ness, usually translated as restraint tell the story of the philosopher Thales, who was in such deeply or reservedness.20 Two movements constitute this rhythm: Er- contemplative awe of the stars above him that he fell into a well under his feet. Socrates says to Theodorus, “the same joke ap- 19 Hannah Arendt, “Philosophy and Politics,” Social Re- plies to all who spend their lives in philosophy” (174a-b). And search, 57, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 97. two thousand years later, the political philosopher Hannah Ar- 20 Most of the material on Verhaltenheit can be found in endt applies it to Martin Heidegger. Martin Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected • 15 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 schrecken, a kind of shock, or even terror; and Scheu, or awe. isolated, onto-epistemological subject that is sure it is what it is Holding itself back in Verhaltenheit, thinking exposes itself to because it knows what it knows, or that it knows what it knows the sudden uncanniness of everything it thought it knew: ideas, because it is what it is. Existing in the rhythm of Erschrecken objects, and the thinking self itself. This vertigo then gives way and Scheu, the self could never become that transcendental sub- to a kind of awe that anything can be at all. So if Erschrecken ject for whom nothing is ultimately shocking or wonderful—the registers that that which is cannot possibly be, then Scheu sees Augustinian astronomer, Cartesian cogito, or Baconian prince that it nonetheless is; if shock recoils at the abandonment of be- who proclaims his godlike self-sufficiency. Rather, selves would ing, awe marvels that being, impossibly, gives itself through this be left open, interdependent, vulnerable. withdrawal—that beings cannot be, and yet beings are. Which is to say being happens, where being cannot possibly happen. It is * * * at this point that Verhaltenheit gains an almost prophetic valence. Maintaining itself in the terrifying wake of being’s withdrawing What, then, has any of this got to do with global conflict? self-donation, awe not only attends to that which, impossibly, is, What does it mean to offer a reflection on some primordial at- but also awaits the appearance or non-appearance of that which, tunement to indeterminacy at this particular historical juncture? impossibly, might yet be: something that might actually change It could be argued, at least provisionally, that the most dan- the violent, objectified, being-abandoned state of things. While gerous theo-socio-political knots currently strangling the globe a certain shock withstands the sudden departure of everything stem from the positing, and conflict, of inviolable certainties. that is, awe watches, in The will-toward-mas- the midst of the impos- tery that asserts itself by sible, for the arrival of The impulse to domesticate and internalize obliterating uncertainty the unexpected.21 has had unspeakably vi- Understood along wonder by making the Philosophical Subject olent effects on all sides these lines, a sustained into wonder’s very source and object -- like of the so-called “clash” wonder would require of the Mesopotamian- a ceaseless attunement God in a way -- has been perhaps most sprung “civilizations,” to the uncanniness of with everyone abso- the everyday, akin to ironically incarnated in contemporary lutely sure he is right. Socrates’ tireless ques- It could in this context tioning of the ordinary. American strategy. be suggested that the If, in other words, won- impulse to domesticate der were truly wonder, it could not lead to the neglectful other- and internalize wonder by making the Philosophical Subject worldliness Arendt attributes to it, because bluntly put, there can into wonder’s very source and object—like God in a way—has be no shock at the sudden senselessness of the everyday without been perhaps most ironically incarnated in contemporary Amer- attentiveness to the everyday. To be sure, Heidegger himself was ican military strategy. In particular, we have seen it animate the unable to sustain the vigilant holding-backness to which he calls pretensions of “Shock and Awe,” first deployed to launch the thinking, falling instead into the lure of unquestionable party- “Operation Iraqi Freedom” offensive of 2003.22 lines and slogans. Were it possible, however, genuinely to hold The treatise that outlines this tactic was written in 1996 by oneself in wonder’s frightful oscillation, it would neither allow Harlan Ullman and James Wade, who describe Shock and Awe a capitulation to uninterrogated doctrines, nor open an escape- as an effort to amaze the enemy to such an extent that “it” will hatch into some stratospheric other-world. It would rather trans- give up all hope of resistance. The aim of Shock and Awe is form the wonderer’s relationship to this unusually usual world, therefore not mass murder, so much as it is complete “psycho- revealing the extraordinary through the ordinary, precisely by logical dominance,” defined as “the ability to destroy, defeat, revealing the ordinary as extraordinarily strange. and neuter the will of an adversary to resist.”23 Shock and Awe This would pertain especially to the so-called subject, Des- cartes’ fundamentum inconcussum, “like God in a way.” By 22 It should be noted that while this tactic composed the holding the one who wonders in a place where her very self initial war plan, many have argued that it did not work, and seems strange, wonder would obstruct the consolidation of the some have insisted that it was not properly executed in the first place. See Eric Schmitt, “Top General Concedes Air At- ‘Problems’ of ‘Logic’, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André tacks Did Not Deliver knockout Blow,” The New York Times, Schuwer (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), and 26 March 2003, and Paul Sperry, “No Shock, No Awe, It in idem., Contributions to Philosophy (from Enknowing), Never Happened,” World Net Daily, 3 April 2003. trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Indianapolis: Indiana 23 Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Jr., Shock and Awe: University Press, 1999). Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington, DC: The Center 21 This includes Heidegger’s enigmatic figure of “the last for Advanced Concepts and Technology, 1996) http://purl.ac- God.” See, for example, Contributions, 12. cess.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS29021,“Introduction to Rapid Domi- • 16 • Fall 2006 Mary-Jane Rubenstein entails, among other maneuvers: massive bombardment with could be the aim here but to provoke the kind of yir’ah that conventional bombs (they suggest 300-400 in a day), the de- the Israelites express once the plagues have come, the sea has struction of military and civilian infrastructure (access to power, parted, and the Egyptians are dead on the shore: “Who is like roads, food, communication, and supplies), and calculated cir- thee, O Lord, among the gods?/ Who is like thee, majestic in culation of “misinformation” or “disinformation.”24 Ullman and holiness,/ terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”28 One had Wade have likened the force of Shock and Awe to that of “torna- better give in to the force that can so wonderfully, awfully, light does, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, uncontrolled fires, famine, up the sky. and disease,” and have also called it “the non-nuclear equivalent Shock and Awe, then, is the most extreme contemporary of…Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” which disarmed all Japan’s sui- expression of the modern super-powerful ego’s internalization cidal resistance efforts by producing “a state of awe.”25 of wonder, a wiping away of the whole horizon that, I have Equating Shock and Awe not only with the disasters one argued, stems from a refusal of all indeterminacy. Rather than tends to call “acts of God” (and find in Exodus), but also with undergo the awful uncertainty of wonder, the autonomous sub- the psychological effects of the atomic bomb, Ullman and Wade ject—or nation—masquerades as the only wonder in the world, unwittingly justify Augustine’s concern about the idolatrous ultimately imposing wonder, in the most terrifying ways, upon imposition of wonder upon others. J. Robert Oppenheimer in- others. “Achieving Shock and Awe rests in the ability to deter famously linked nuclear, natural, and divine force upon chan- and overpower an adversary through the adversary’s perception neling Krishna in New Mexico: “If the radiance of one thousand of fear of his vulnerability,” write Ullman and Wade, “and our suns were to burst into the sky,” Oppenheimer said upon seeing own invincibility.”29 the blast, “that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.” And so, one might understandably argue, why not just get Moments later, he intoned, “I am become Death—shatterer of rid of wonder? Find a different mood for thinking, preferably worlds.”26 The idea behind Shock and Awe is to demonstrate that one that’s a bit less dangerous? But this leads us back to the it would be as impossible to refuse to comply with the United problem, and the promise, of wonder’s irreducible anteriority. States military as it would be to resist the shatterer of worlds, It won’t, much like any other ancestral ghost, just go away; in or to switch gods, to reject a commandment given in a pillar of fact, the harder one tries to expunge it, the more disastrously it cloud and fire. “The punishing air attacks rocked the Baghdad asserts itself. More positively stated, rather than imposing it on night Friday,” one report put it, “with thunderous explosions that others, metaphysically or militarily, what if it were the task of filled the skies with flames and huge clouds of smoke.”27 What thinking to remain with the wonder that keeps it vulnerable and unsure of itself? nance.” Presumably, such a remaining-with would prevent the for- 24 “Rapid Dominance must be all-encompassing…It will im- mation of the usual protective ontological bulwarks: the Carte- ply more than the direct application of force. It will mean the sian subject, the God of the philosophers, and so on, not only ability to control the environment and to master all levels of restraining the destructive will toward the mastery they under- an opponent’s activities to affect will, perception, and under- gird, but also keeping the wonderer exposed to otherness, to the standing. This could include means of communication, trans- arrival of the unanticipated in the midst of the ordinary. To be portation, food production, water supply, and other aspects sure, wonder puts thinking on the side of the vulnerable, rather of infrastructure as well as the denial of military responses. than the invincible. Opening itself to the wondrous, thinking Deception, misinformation, and disinformation are key com- opens itself to the most horrifying of all, but there may be no ponents in this assault on the will and understanding of the other way to expose philosophy, or politics, or religion, to the opponent” (Ibid). See also “Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile possibility of the transformative than to expose it at the same Barage,” CBS News, 24 January 2003, and The “Shock and time to the possibility of the devastating. And so nothing could Awe” Experiment: Compilation, Analysis, and Discussion of be less escapist or other-worldly. For it would be through the Available Information on the Pentagon’s “Shock and Awe” attunement to that which is most awful and most amazing that Plan for Iraq, www.notinourname.net/war/shock_awe.html. thinking might keep itself attentive to the way ordinary things tend to slip away from thought, and watch for the possible emer- 25 Ullman and Wade, Appendix A, Introduction. gence of something strange within the unthinkably beautiful, or 26 Cited in “J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atom Bomb Pioneer, monstrous, or indeed enraging wonder of the everyday. Dies,” The New York Times, 19 February 1967. 28 Exodus 15:11. 27 “Massive Firestorm Targets Iraqi Leadership,” CNN.com, 21 March 2003. 29 Ullman and Wade, Chapter 2. Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Assistant Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University, where she teaches in the areas of philosophy of religion and modern Christian thought.

• 17 •

Just War and the New Community: The Witness of the Old Testament For Christians Today Gordon Brubacher

I. INTRODUCTION singular expectations for the people of God, yet who faithfully travels with those people through all vicissitudes, in sickness Recently I received the following assignment from the edi- and in health, for better or for worse, without any qualifications tors of Princeton Theological Review: such as parting by death. We, in turn, can learn by joining that journey and follow- War is a common theme in the Old Testament, but for all ing the story of that process. We are invited to participate in its narrative treatment, the portrait of Israel as a light to that journey, to learn from the mistakes and wrong turns as por- the nations in a context of political conflict remains theo- trayed, to take seriously the considerable list of side roads that logically complex, and, at least at first glance, ethically did not work out as expected. We can follow the Divine leading perplexing. How does this portrait given to us by the OT to the creation of a new community, a new people of God, leav- witness shed light on how God’s chosen people may live ing the old behind, and living and showing a new way for all. out their vocation as Christian witnesses in situations of That new land, that destination for the journey, is proclaimed global conflict today? especially in a group of passages in Second Isaiah and in other, related, prophetic witness, as a new way of life for a new com- Naturally, such a challenging topic generates many thoughts, munity of faith and practice. and I am grateful for encouragement from the editors to stimu- In short, a major portion of the OT witness presents a sus- late discussion among their readers.1 I propose to take all as- tained show-and-tell lesson on where not to go and what not to pects of the assignment seriously, including the two most dif- do, or at least on what is no longer the first choice, because it ficult, namely: (a) the OT witness on war, on its own terms,2 in has not worked. It then goes on to describe the new way which all its ethical perplexity; and (b) the usability, if any, of this OT is expected of the people of God instead. It is precisely that witness for the church today.3 new way which constitutes the normative OT witness for us, the people of God today. II. DEVLOPING A HERMENEUTIC: THINGS THAT DID NOT WORK B. Jesus and the OT A. What, or Where, is the OT Witness? Furthermore, the NT witness seems to point in the same di- First, we need to establish a usable OT hermeneutic, and to rection, to the same final, normative OT witness. The Gospels my mind this begins by looking where the OT points, and going report that Jesus of Nazareth specifically indicated that same OT on that journey. For there is no such thing as the OT witness. description of the new community as his starting point for mis- That is to say, the OT does not present a single, flat, monolithic sion and ministry, and as his expectation for the people of God “witness” to be extrapolated by balancing or synthesizing its (e.g., Luke 4:16-22, quoting Isa 61:1-2; Matt 12:17-21, quot- various elements as found throughout. Instead, the OT presents ing Isa 42:1-4, 9; Matt 11:4-6, quoting or citing Isa 29:18-19; an extended narrative journey, in which the destination is more 35:5-6; 42:18; 61:1). Precisely because the Evangelists pointed important—more authoritative and normative—than the begin- to the latest OT witness, the Gospel witness is inextricably con- ning or the middle of that experience. It presents a God who has nected to it. 1. The writer wishes to acknowledge the work of Ruth Kitchin, Re- As a result, we can take Jesus as guide for deciding which search Assistant, especially for global conflict and for war in the Old stage of the OT journey constitutes the OT witness for the Testament; the role of my colleague Mike Cosby for a fine critical church today. There is nothing Marcionite about this hermeneu- reading; and good conversation partners who have included my col- tic. Rather, it is more organic, growing from within the biblical leagues Rhonda Brubacher, Sharon Baker, and Eric Seibert. witness, following the signals given in the text itself. 2. Rather than, for example, merely pointing to the teaching of Jesus As a further result, we now have two different signposts to “Love your enemies. . .” (Matt 5:44), asserting that this supersedes for the journey, both pointing to the same destination. One is war in the OT, and closing in prayer without further ado. located in the OT witness, and one in the New. From our posi- 3. This study will focus on those two elements, rather than present- tion, with two such verified points of reference, we can specify ing an analysis of politicized global conflict per se. Hopefully, the the location of our destination through triangulation, and we will results (on the witness of the OT relating to Just War) can in turn be soon go there to explore. But first, we need to do two things: employed as a guide for responding to political and global conflict. (a) develop further the hermeneutics of earlier and later OT wit- • 19 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 ness; and (b) travel through the prophetic critique of militarism perseded, or they did not work out, at some point along the on our way to arriving at the new community which no longer way. engages in war. The list includes sacrifices and offerings, kingship, temple, Je- rusalem, the Mt. Sinai covenant, earlier prophetic oracles using C. Revision and Updating Within the OT Witness the Mt. Sinai Covenant as the criterion, promised land, chosen That the later OT witness takes precedence over the earlier people (in the exclusive sense for salvific purpose), probably has certain hermeneutical implications for the church today: war, and perhaps other matters as well. 1. Avoid applying anything that has been changed or left Again, the implications for Justified War in the witness of behind, such as sacrifices, or the Joshua Conquest, or human the OT for the church seem evident. kingship, even if God commanded it, or God worked with it, at one time. a. If the main instances in which God commanded or ac- 2. In such cases (things that have been changed), the her- cepted or worked with warfare occur earlier in the storyline; meneutical issue is not whether God ever commanded or ap- b. and if, in the final portion of that storyline, the new proved or worked with something at some time in the past. people of God are expected to end warfare and all other Instead, the issue is whether something like that is still opera- forms of conflict; tive (for outmoded things, see below the list of “Things That c. then it follows that the OT witness on the subject of Did Not Work”). Justified War can be summarized in two words: “No more.” 3. In other words, for each subject or issue, the herme- neutical imperative is to ascertain what is the most recent, This is indeed where the OT witness ends up on the subject of updated will of God for us, the new community of God’s Justified War or any other type of war, as I hope to show below. people. But on the way it passes through some interesting transitional 4. This hermeneutic implies a clear conclusion: the territory, namely, a prophetic critique of militarism which does whole Bible is not equal. That is to say, the whole Bible is not altogether prohibit warfare but which seriously undermines not equal in authority and application for followers of Jesus both the ethics and the practicality of the enterprise. Our jour- Christ. If it were, we would still sacrifice a lamb in church ney now goes through that terrain. every Sunday morning. Paul was right in Galatians 5:3: it is all or nothing. III. ANTIMILITARISIM IN THE PROPHETIC CRITIQUE 5. Given a significant contrast between the teaching of Jesus and something else in the canon of Scripture on the “Choose life,” said the prophet Jeremiah as a superpower at- same subject, the teaching of Jesus takes hermeneutical pri- tacked Jerusalem. “Do not fight—just surrender. Save lives.” ority. That is to say, the teaching of Jesus takes precedence and has greater authority. Thus says the LORD: See, I am setting before you the 6. When an issue is unclear, give priority to the promi- way of life and the way of death. Those who stay in this nent, dominant, timeless, major principles found in the bibli- city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; cal witness as a whole. For example, the love, mercy and but those who go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who forgiveness of God are prominent and dominant; so also is are besieging you shall live and shall have their lives as a the almost irrational faithfulness of God no matter how badly prize of war. (Jer 21:8-9)5 people go wrong; also the relentless redemptive work of God no matter how improbable the apparent odds are for success; Critique or rejection of the military option constitutes a run- and so on.4 ning strand throughout prophetic thought. Bearing some affinity to the new community idea of ending warfare, and found in vari- D. Things That Did Not Work ous forms, it includes the thoughts and theses outlined below. The hermeneutic outlined above implies that some things in Most, if not all, of this critique was itself proclaimed specifically the divine dealings with humanity appear to have been altered. in the context of political conflict—in real life situations of war, Indeed, one can actually compile a list of such things which, at siege, threat, or national security policy, whether in the mak- some point in the biblical story line, ing or the failing. Collectively, this anti-military theme in the a. God commanded, or approved, or accepted, or worked prophets constitutes an important part of the OT witness on war with; and therefore on the doctrine of Justified War. b. but God changed, or dropped, or left behind, or su- This calls for a word on the prophets and the political re- alities of the day. One cannot say outright that “the prophetic 4. Marvin Tate makes a somewhat similar point within a more critique is uniformly against war.” However, the stream of anti- limited framework: “. . .if we search for the basic will of Yahweh militarism within prophetic thought seems to prepare the way for Israel, we discover that he does not direct them to be a violent for, or function as a transition to, the “no more war” requirement people. . . .The Divine Warrior does not seek a people who are war- laid upon the new people of God in the later OT witness. riors,” in “War and Peacemaking in the Old Testament,” Review and Expositor 79 (1982): 593. 5. Bible References are to the NRSV unless otherwise indicated. • 20 • Fall 2006 Gordon Brubacher

A major and constant need was national security, that is, reflected a belief that in war he could protect his own. Baal physical security against hostile armies, and the big question was the god of kings and aristocracy, of palace and temple and was: “Where should we place our trust?” The standard answers, fortress city, of priests and leaders and powerful land-owners, of along with some prophetic alternatives, may be outlined as fol- the whole system of advantage for those with power. In short, lows. he was the god of the privileged minority inside the walls, the god of those who used power as they wished. Bronze Age (Ca- A. Trust God, Not the Idolatry of Military Power naanite period) excavations have revealed a system of fortified One answer to the national security question was found in cities that functioned as fortress castles for that ruling class, who strong armies and chariot controlled and exploited forces which could take the great majority—those the field against invading National security seemed so fragile outside the walls. armies. In ancient Israel The social ethics of this was rarely realistic— precisely because the various human this system contradicted only under David, perhaps everything taught at Si- Solomon to some extent, efforts to secure it usually failed. Were nai and learned by ex- a few others for short pe- perience in the desert. riods. This method be- there no alternatives? There were, but The so-called conquest longed to empires. and settlement narrative Isaiah criticized He- they were difficult choices because pictures the Israelites zekiah for trusting arms terminating this system buildup instead of the they required giving up control. in Canaan, by attacking creator (Isa 22:8-11). Ho- the oppressive kings and sea 10:13 says war will destroy the Northern Kingdom because their fortress capitals (e.g., Josh 12), and liberating the general it trusted the army. In fact Isaiah 2:7-8 lists military power population in the process. The latter could then join the Israel- and idolatry together; Micah 5:10-15 includes war horses and ites at Joshua’s covenant renewal ceremony if willing to jettison chariots in the same list as idols which God will “cut off.” Mi- their former gods (Josh 24). cah 1:13 calls war horses and chariots the beginning of sin for But Solomon essentially restarted the Canaanite fortress the Jerusalem rulers, citing this as the sin of the now destroyed system and its values (1 Kgs 9:15-19). By organizing an admin- Northern Kingdom (cf. Mic 6:16). The superpowers are no istrative system to use forced labor and collect heavy taxes, he exception: the transgression of Babylon is viewing its military virtually enslaved his own people (1 Kgs 4:7-19, 22-28; 5:13-16; might as its god (Hab 1:11). 10:15, 26; 12:4, 13), all as the prophet Samuel had warned (1 Sam 8). Solomon began a trend—the way of death—which B. Trust God, Not Fortress Cities for Defense led to the fall of both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. A second answer to the national security question was found This system, created and sustained by military force in the in major defensive fortifications at selected sites. This was the name of national security, is what drew the prophetic critique. standard answer in ancient Israel in the period of the monarchy, Amos 3:10 summarized the systemic problem: as witnessed in the archaeological remains today. The funda- mental theory was to hole up behind safe walls and wait until the They do not know how to do right, says the LORD, besieging army went away, or was driven away by the approach those who store up violence and robbery in their of a stronger army allied to those inside. strongholds. When we realize that “cities” in the world of the OT were primarily the equivalent of hilltop fortress castles, some of the Hosea 8:14 said Judah has “forgotten his Maker” by multiply- prophetic passages which critique the cities (see below) make ing fortified cities, and predicted (correctly) that they would be more sense. Surrounded by massive walls and entered through destroyed by war (cf. 10:14). Micah 5:10-15 included cities a heavily defended gate complex, they provided for storage of and strongholds in his list of things constituting idolatry. Isa- food, water, and weapons and were inhabited primarily by the iah 22:8-11 described the Jerusalem defensive walls and mili- ruling class. (To date virtually no normal houses for the general tary water system enclosing them (Hezekiah’s tunnel and the population have been found inside the walls.) The resulting pic- Pool of Siloam) as a failure to trust God. ture is that the so-called cities were centers of power and wealth, Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem as well deserved injustice and oppression, and trust in human defenses for secu- for its sins of oppression (6:6-8) and arrogance (21:13-14), and rity. (Such “security” was only for those within the walls.) he proved to be right. That problem had started earlier, in Bronze Age Canaan. With the worship of Baal, religious ethics and the socio-eco- C. Trust God, Not Military Alliance nomic structure worked hand in hand. In Canaanite mythology, A third answer to the national security problem presented Baal had fought his way to kingship over the gods, and the texts itself in arranging outside help, and this, too, was often planned

• 21 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 and relied on in ancient Israel. Strategic treaty or alliance, hope- pleasing those in power also has its attractions, one might ex- fully with the superpower which would win next time around, pect to find voices claiming to speak for God supporting the was a common method of defense in the biblical world. Like powers that be in general, and the military option in particular. the fortified city method, to which it was usually linked, these Because this happened, the prophetic critique of militarism had alliances tended to fail also, and this was one reason that the to counter the false prophets who supported militarism and other prophets boldly denounced them on many occasions. For ex- aspects of the power structure in various ways. ample, Isaiah 30:1-3 called alliance with Egypt rebellion, sin, For example, in the Northern Kingdom, King Ahab’s court and against God’s will: prophets assured the king that God would give him victory in his proposed military venture. This opinion was, however, opposed Oh, rebellious children, says the LORD, by the lone voice of Micaiah son of Imlah, who not only said who carry out a plan, but not mine; the opposite but correctly predicted the death of Ahab in battle who make an alliance, but against my will, (1 Kings 22). adding sin to sin; Jeremiah in particular was forced into continuous conflict who set out to go down to Egypt with falsely-prophesying opponents. One form of false message without asking for my counsel, which he encountered and countered was the proclamation that to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, all was well and would stay that way with regard to the state and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt; of national well-being (Jer 6:13-14; 23:14, 17). In the process, Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your he said, the false prophets “strengthen the hands of evildoers” shame, (23:14). and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humili- Another form of false prophecy specifically proclaimed a ation. false sense of reality regarding national security and the use of military defense. In countering this form Jeremiah sometimes had In other examples, Isaiah 10:3-4 said no outside help would to be explicit about the destructive consequences (Jer 5:12-13, avail; or again that Egypt would fail to deliver (20:1-6); and 30-31; 27:14-15). In this regard the dramatic scroll-burning again that trusting Egypt in- scene functioned something stead of God would fail (31:1- like false prophecy in that it 3). Hosea (5:13; cf. 7:11), who The value here was on human life denied a true but unwanted at times appeared to be diplo- message about national secu- matically challenged, called rather than on ego, or on some rity and foreign policy.6 the seeking of alliance acting Particularly intriguing is like a silly dove—fluttering ephemeral appeal to ‘freedom.’ an apparent contrast between between Egypt and Assyria. good news messages, which Jeremiah 2:13-19 called such alliances “two evils,” namely, are to be viewed as inherently false, versus bad news messages abandoning their God, and trusting other powers instead. Eze- which are more likely to be true. For example, kiel 17:17-19 predicted that Pharaoh, for all “his mighty army” (v. 17), would not help the Jerusalemite puppet king. Lamenta- But listen now to this word that I speak in your hearing tions 4:17 conveyed the pathos of eagerly watching for help that and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who would never come. preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, It seems that ancient Egypt in particular was notorious for famine, and pestilence against many countries and great failure to help, for many of the above references are to that na- kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when tion. The cynical observations on this point, set in the mouth the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known of an Assyrian commander, were probably quite realistic that the LORD has truly sent the prophet. (Jer 28:7-9) (2 Kgs 18:19-25). Does this not seem an odd set of criteria for distinguishing D. False Prophets Support the Military Option true from false? Apparently there was no need for a message from God in times of well-being, for that was the norm and the Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are telling divine will for all people. But in times of crisis, of unfolding you not to serve the king of Babylon, for they are proph- blunder and folly, divine messages of guidance were most need- esying a lie to you. I have not sent them, says the LORD, ed for action in the crisis. As a result, prophetic messages pro- but they are prophesying falsely in my name, with the re- claiming that all was well in the immediate situation (“peace”) sult that I will drive you out and you will perish, you and were inherently suspect (cf. “‘peace, peace,’ when there is no the prophets who are prophesying to you. (Jer 27:14-15) 6. Also relevant are scenes in which otherwise true prophets deliv- “What brought that on?” one might ask. Human nature, ered a false message or action in the name of God. For example, likely. Given that military power itself has attractions, and that Nathan initially did so regarding David’s plan to build a temple, and his error had to be corrected by a true message (2 Sam 8:1-17). • 22 • Fall 2006 Gordon Brubacher peace” in Jer 6:13-14). addition, refusal to surrender caused even more harm and suf- One might wonder if religious leaders in all times and plac- fering, and therefore constituted the greater of two evils, in the es who proclaim the divine will to use military force for national process of resistance. This is vividly witnessed by the frequent security or well-being are functionally operating in the mode of and important linking of the terrible and devastatingly real se- false prophecy. Is it a form of false prophecy to “make wrong- quence of “sword, famine, and pestilence” in the biblical world.8 ful use of the name of the Lord” (traditionally, to “take God’s For example, name in vain”; Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11)? Possibly yes, in that it refers to promoting a given action on grounds that it is desired Those who stay in this city shall die by the sword, by or supported by God when in fact it violates the revealed will, or famine, and by pestilence; but those who go out and sur- nature, or “name” of God. This might apply whether it refers to render to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live the later OT witness, or any other period since then. and shall have their lives as a prize of war. (Jer 21:9)

E. Do Not Choose Death: It Did Not Work The sequential link was primarily causal. War destroyed the For all practical purposes, the military option was the way food supply (or it was consumed during siege), and also killed of death. those who produced it, thereby causing famine for the unfortu- nate survivors. Because you have trusted in your power War also left large numbers of unburied corpses, famine and in the multitude of your warriors, caused malnutrition with its consequent lowered resistance to therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people, disease, and siege conditions eventually generated an extreme and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, lack of hygiene, thereby contributing to the conditions which as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle promoted plague.9 when mothers were dashed in pieces with their chil- It is important therefore to realize that both starvation and dren. (Hos 10:13-14) war were closely linked to pestilence, and it is no accident that the ancient Near Eastern gods of plague were gods of war as “Those who trust the military will perish by the military,” well. Words on paper can hardly convey the horror of such might have been a prophetic aphorism at the time. Certainly, circumstances or the helplessness and vulnerability that people this is a fundamental idea preserved in the witness. For ex- of the time experienced, whether they lived within the walls or ample, Amos 6:1-3 offered a vivid object lesson to this effect outside. from previously destroyed kingdoms. Isaiah 31:1-3 lamented fate. For example, Iron Age Bethsaida/Tzer, which was probably the the coming fate of a Southern Kingdom which trusted in the capital of the kingdom of Geshur (located on the southern Golan be- Egyptian chariot force instead of the Holy One of Israel (v. 1), tween Aram and Israel), experienced catastrophic destruction at the because the helper and the ones receiving help “will all perish hands of Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727) of Assyria in 732 BCE. (The together” (v. 3). writer has been privileged to work on this excavation since 1995. In In fact, the prophets were correct. The military defense op- June 2006 we continued to uncover the layer containing this very de- tion was indeed characterized by illusion, in view of the fact struction, at the main gate complex and the causeway leading to it.) that it rarely worked despite the massive resources invested. A See Rami Arav, “Toward a Comprehensive History of Geshur,” in determined attacking army usually succeeded in the end. The Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, Bethsaida Excavations Project Reports and Contextual Studies, Vol. 3, edited fact that even the powerfully fortified cities of the Northern and by Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund (Kirksville: Truman State Uni- Southern Kingdoms fell to attack and thus failed in their pur- versity Press), 14-15; John Green, “Tiglath-Pileser III’s War Against 7 pose is a matter of record in the archaeological remains. In the City of Tzer,” in the same volume, 63-82. 8. Sixteen times in Jeremiah alone, e.g., 14:12; 21:7; 24:10; 27:8; 7. The remains of biblical Gezer, Megiddo, Hazor, Dan, Lachish, also Deut 23:23-25; Ezek 6:11-12; 7:15; 14:21; Rev 6:8. Extra-bibli- and Jerusalem, to cite a few examples, are dominated by massive cal examples also abound, e.g., in the campaigns of King Ashurba- perimeter walls, gate complexes and towers, grain storage silos, and nipal of Assyria (668-633 BCE): “Irra the Warrior (i.e., pestilence) systems for bringing the water source inside the walls. Neverthe- struck down Uate, as well as his army, who had not kept the oaths less, they failed, again and again, as witnessed by the many layers of sworn to me. . . .Famine broke out among them and they ate the destruction at each site. flesh of their children,” in Texts from Hammurabi to the Downfall See, for example, Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bi- of Assyria: Historical Documents, trans. by A. Leo Oppenheim, ble, 10,000-586 B.C.E., Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: ANET, 299-300, Col. ix; Biridiya, prince of Megiddo, c. 1350 BCE, Doubleday, 1990), chaps. 9-11, esp. chap. 11, 463-502; Zeev Herzog, reports on siege and famine in the city to his Egyptian overlord “Settlement and Fortification Planning in the Iron Age,” in The Ar- Akh-en-Aton, “. . .we are not able to go outside the gate in the pres- chitecture of Ancient Israel, edited by Aharon Kempinski and Ronny ence of Lab’ayu, . . .Verily, the city is destroyed by death from pes- Reich (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1990), 231-74; Yigal tilence and disease,” in The Amarna Letters, trans. by W. F. Albright Shiloh, “Underground Water Systems in the Land of Israel in the and G. E. Mendenhall, ANET, 485, EA, No. 244. Iron Age,” in the same volume, 275-93; Zeev Meshel, “The Archi- tecture of the Israelite Fortresses in the Negev,” in the same volume, 9. N. Zilber and S. Kottek, “Pestilence in Bible and Talmud: Some 294-301. Neighboring fortified cities of course suffered the same Aspects Related to Public Health,” Koroth 9 (1985): 254. • 23 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2

F. Instead, Choose Life: will not bring one to the next water source in time. Hence the Trust, Repentance, Justice, and Enemy Well-Being Bedouin proverb, “The path is wiser than the one who walks upon it,” meaning the path was made by survivors who knew 1. Trust God: an option based in faith. National security where they were going. So follow them. The same thought lies seemed so fragile precisely because the various human efforts to behind the pithy Bedouin proverb: “Shorter path, shorter life.” secure it usually failed. Were there no alternatives? There were, That is, do not get ideas about shortcuts—they tend to be fatal. but they were difficult choices because they required giving up The same symbolic usage occurs in the Qur’an, starting with the control. Bismillah, “Guide us on the right path” (Sura 1:5 and passim). One alternative was to trust God, submit to the foreign pow- For Hosea, choice one of the two roads was destruction er, and pay tribute, in which case the invading armies did little (chap. 13), not preventable by depending on military leaders or harm. This option would avoid the terrible human costs of siege fortress cities (v. 10). Choice two was repentance for the idola- and total war. And so the prophet Jeremiah brought the word of trous sin of trusting Assyria and military power: the Lord to his king: Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. and serve him and his people, and live. Why should you Take words with you and your people die by the sword, by famine, and by pes- and return to the LORD; tilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning any nation say to him, that will not serve the king of Babylon? Do not listen to “Take away all guilt; the words of the prophets who are telling you not to serve accept that which is good, the king of Babylon, for they are prophesying a lie to you. and we will offer (Jer 27:12-14) the fruit of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; The value here was on human life rather than on ego, or on some we will not ride upon horses; ephemeral appeal to “freedom.” Also, by implication, the value we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our was on re-allocating massive defense budgets and human re- hands. sources from military use to the well-being of the general popu- In you the orphan finds mercy.” (Hos 14:1-3) lation. However, this option did not come naturally to people in power, for it had a certain cost in treasure, humility, and loss of Remarkable for its humility, in contrast to the hubris of trusting face. Moreover, this response took no little faith or trust in God, military force, this proffered liturgy for repentance ends by iden- no small commitment to tifying the nation as an obedience despite the cost. orphan, an image of total So it was easier said than The OT witness for the people of God dependence and vulnera- done and rarely tried at bility. The assured divine all, whether in the biblical today expects us to work for an end to all response, should Israel world or in any other place war. Such a hope and expectation shines so repent, was not only or time. healing and forgiveness 2. The road to secu- like a clear light across a darkened (v. 4) but also a promise rity is repentance. Like that God would make the Robert Frost, Hosea offered global community in bondage to conflict nation flourish with well- a final choice between two being, which was surely roads diverging on the yel- of every kind. It illuminates the path for the goal of the erroneous low-brown deserts of the national security policy Middle East, and leading this difficult, yet required, and utterly in the first place (vv. 5-7). to two very different fates. The prophet then remind- The words “way,” worthwhile journey. ed his audience of the fi- “road,” and “path” in the nal choice between idola- OT (as in Middle Eastern idiom to this day) often represented try and trust (v. 8). The book ends with an editorial colophon of way of life, that is, habitual actions with attention to consequent good advice: “Be smart: choose the right road” (v. 9). moral status and ultimately to the fate or consequences to which That there might still be time to repent before it is too late these habitual actions lead (see, for a few examples, Pss 1:1, 6; was an emphatic part of the prophetic witness (e.g., Am 5:15; 16:11; 119:35; Prov 2:18; 4:14, 18; 6:23; 7:27; 14:12; 16:25; Isa 30:18; 55:6-8; Jer 3:11-14). Jer 21:8). 3. The road to security is social justice. Yet another varia- Background to this imagery is an important survival need in tion on the theme of national security was the social justice pre- the desert, where taking the wrong path can be fatal because it requisite. As the Assyrian threat grew, Amos 5:4-15 proclaimed

• 24 • Fall 2006 Gordon Brubacher that the nation would survive if, and only if, it would establish lar to the theme of “those who trust the military will perish by or reestablish social justice. military force,” found in Hosea 10:13-14, Amos 6:1-3, and Isa- Isaiah 1:27-28 brought the unwelcome message that Zion iah 31:1-3, as outlined above. would be redeemed or rescued, rather than destroyed, by engag- Jesus’ awareness of working in the prophetic tradition is ing in social justice, repentance, and right actions. Again, the indicated by the way he includes this as an aspect of his own presence of social justice would produce “peace,” that is, overall mission: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or security and well-being (32:16-18). the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mat- Jeremiah carried this message all the way. Even in the end- thew 5:17). “Fulfill” means to finish, or bring to completion, game, with Jerusalem under siege by Babylon, Jeremiah was what they had started. So the teaching of Jesus in these matters adamant on this point. Instead of a message like “a miracle is might not be entirely in the form of radical new ideas. To some coming” (as requested by King Zedekiah; Jer 21:1-3), he pro- extent it represented the divine will already revealed through the claimed this word from the Lord: prophets and now reiterated and reinforced with the expectation Execute [social] justice in the morning, that it should be obeyed. In short, some of the apparently more and deliver from the hand of the oppressor radical teachings of Jesus about nonviolence were not all that anyone who has been robbed, new or radical except insofar as he apparently insisted that these or else . . . (Jer 21:12) ideas were required by the new community of God’s people and were to be carried into action. In addition, first century exam- Unfortunately, his audience did not heed his words, and the “or ples of Jewish nonviolent resistance to Rome were available as else” is what happened. actual models, so the teaching of Jesus was not far-fetched even 4. Seek the well-being of your enemy. Incredibly, the at the time.11 message of Jeremiah about the well-being of his own people Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus apparently applied the doc- included the well-being of the enemy: trine of nonviolence to Jerusalem in its own political situation in his day. Having just declined the Maccabean option of leading But seek the welfare of the [enemy] city where I have sent an armed revolt (Luke 19:35-40), he went on to predict, with you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in eminently practical realism, that such a revolt would constitute its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the a catastrophic blunder: LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from them, says the LORD. (Jer 29:7-14) your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and sur- Understandably, this message encountered opposition from false round you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush prophets, because it would seem to run counter to human nature. you to the ground, you and your children within you, and Nonetheless, the message stands, and with a practical element they will not leave within you one stone upon another; implied: working for the well-being of the enemy is ultimately because you did not recognize the time of your visitation a win-win situation. Moreover, given that “love” in the Bible from God.” (Luke 19:41-44) primarily means commitment, especially to the well-being of its object, the message of Jeremiah sounds suspiciously like “Love “You seem blind to the realities,” might be a way to para- your enemies.” The later giver of that message also worked in phrase part of that message in its political context. “You simply the prophetic tradition, as we are about to see. do not realize what makes for well-being. Trying to create well- being by military force will only lead to destruction by such IV. JESUS IN THE PROPHETIC TRADITION force.” As things turned out, Jesus of Nazareth was right, as the The Gospels seem to portray Jesus of Nazareth as work- Great Revolt (66-71 CE) and the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 ing self-consciously in the prophetic tradition. For example, CE) showed, though one cannot blame the rebels for trying. Af- “Do not resist [or fight back against]10 an evildoer” (Matt 5:39), ter all, the Maccabean Revolt (165-134 BCE) had seemed to would seem to echo Jeremiah’s message, “Do not fight—just “work,” at least initially, in that it did succeed in throwing off submit” (Jer 21:8-9; 27:12-14). And again, “love your enemies foreign rule and establishing an independent Jewish state for a and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44) sounds much time. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., but in reverse, many of Je- like Jeremiah’s “seek the welfare of the [enemy] city . . . and pray to the Lord on its behalf” (Jer 29:7). Also, “all who take 11. E.g., Judas the Galilean and tax resistance in 6 CE (Wars 2.118; the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt 26:52) sounds simi- Ant 18.3-9, 23-25); Pontius Pilatus and the Roman standards in 26 CE (Wars 2.9; Ant 18.3); general strike in 36-37 CE, with support 10. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance from the Syrian Legate Petronius, against Caligula’s demand that he in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 185. be worshipped (Wars 2.10; Ant 18.8). • 25 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 sus’ contemporaries had a dream: “We did it once, we’ll do it munity are as follows: again.” But the dream became a nightmare of brutal suppres- sion, slaughter, and the Diaspora. “Lived by force, perished by 1. Divine initiative. The new community is God’s idea force” could have been the epitaph on that terrible sequence and and initiative, not a humanly conceived Utopia (passim). its consequences.12 2. Something new. Creation of this new community is The OT witness to the nonviolent option, reiterated and re- described as a new initiative, like a new creation, or a new inforced by Jesus of Nazareth, might actually make sense in a heavens and earth (e.g., Isa 65:11-18; 42:5, 9; 43:18-19; world of global conflict. In closing comments on the Sermon 48:6-8; Jer 31:31-34). In fact, the Isaiah collection explodes on the Mount, which included uncompromising emphasis on the with newness; about half the OT references to creation out- nonviolent option (Matt 5:44), Jesus emphasized the importance side Genesis are in Isaiah (15 out of 31). This discourse also of acting on those words: cautions against clinging to the earlier terms of divine ex- pectation (e.g., Isa 65:17; 42:9; 43:18; Jer 31:32). One can Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts make an instructive list of the contrasts between “earlier” and on them will be like a wise man . . . (Matt 7:24; emphasis “new,” that is, between the themes which characterize earlier mine) prophetic oracles and those which describe the new commu- nity.14 “Be smart!” said Jesus, echoing the colophon to Hosea. 3. Different kind of covenant. The new relationship “Implement the way of the new community. In doing so you between God and humankind is described in one place as a will choose life.” Or to paraphrase: “I am the way … live like “new covenant,” which seems to imply that Mt. Sinai has me, doing what I say and do. That is the road to life” (cf. John been somehow changed or replaced (Jer 31:31-34). The 14:6). changed covenant now functions as a “light to the nations” (Isa 42:6), whether that covenant refers to the new commu- V. THE NEW COMMUNITY IN PROPHETIC THOUGHT nity (so NJPS) or even the new leader himself (so apparently NRSV).15 A. A New Way of Life 4. New ruler, new methods. The new community is led What if the OT witness were serious and literal about ex- by a new kind of ruler, a chosen and anointed one, a servant pecting the people of God to implement immediately ideas like (e.g., Isa 42:1-7), using a new kind of leadership method: “no more war”? Would that not bring significant bearing on the a. with emphasis on teaching, thinking, knowing, un- matter of Justified War for the people of God today? I think this derstanding, counsel, instruction, and persuasion, in contrast is exactly what we find. The latest or final OT witness to the divine will contains 14. For example, some of the contrasts can be illustrated by compar- prophetic calls for a new community, a new people of God, and ing Jeremiah 22:1-9 (earlier style) to Isaiah 42:1-9 (newer style): in fact a new order of things among the nations. These oracles 1.Earlier: Absolute standards from the past (Mt. Sinai Covenant), requiring sanctions if violated (Jer 22:5-8). New: New standards for constitute a group of passages which together convey a cluster conduct (Isa 42:7). of themes and emphases not found previously in such concen- 2. Earlier: “Shape up, or else,” with retributive justice for contract tration in the OT witness. It’s a different atmosphere in these violation (Jer 22:4-7). New: Virtually absent, or restorative justice passages; in fact, it feels like a whole new world.13 (including between God and the nations), or “remember sin no As a result, these passages seem worthy of treatment as a more” (Isa 42:1-4). new development in that witness, and this is an idea I want to 3. Earlier: Obey the covenant, or else. That is, you are on your present for consideration now. The primary texts include Isa own to do it, and you will suffer consequences from God if you fail 65:17-25; 11:1-9; 9:1-7; 42:1-9; 61:1-4; 2:2-4; Mic 4:1-5; Jer (Jer 22:5-9). New: Divine help is offered and available—the Spirit 31:31-34; cf. Zech 9:9-10. The main features of this new com- of God (Isa 42:1, 5). 4. Earlier: Human leadership (mainly the kings), mostly failing a mission impossible, yet held accountable (Jer 22:1-9). New: A form 12. I had the privilege of working with the Cave of Letters excava- of divinely-endowed leadership, capable of leading by teaching or tion team from 1998 to 2000. The cave is believed to contain the example (Isa 42:1-4). material remains and some of the skeletons of some final survivors 5. Earlier: Still trying to make a failed system work, right up to and their families of the Bar Kochba Revolt. One vivid memory for the Exile (Jer 22:1-9). For an example beyond the Exile in the me in the 2000 season is excavating the skeletons of men, women, Return, see Ezra’s attempt to divorce and expel non-Israelite wives and children in a subcave, the Niche of Skulls, employed as a burial (Ezra 9-10) based on a strict interpretation of Lev 18:24-30 and place for those unfortunate individuals. (The 2000 season prelimi- Deut 7:3-4, with the gratuitous insertion of a hardline clause, “and nary report by Carl Savage is available at http://users.drew.edu/csav- never seek their peace or prosperity” (Ezra 9:12); this in turn was age/cavereport.pdf.) criticized by the prophet Malachi on grounds that these divorces amounted to violence (Mal 2:13-16). New: Moving on to a new 13. Paul Hansen goes part way in a similar direction, but develops system, as if in a new creation (Isa 42:9). the implications somewhat differently in a very thoughtful and con- structive manner in terms of shalom versus chaos, in “War and Peace 15. Lit. “covenants of a people”; the meaning of the Hebrew is in the Hebrew Bible,” in Interpretation 38 (1984): 352-59. unclear to me at this point. • 26 • Fall 2006 Gordon Brubacher

to coercive force, such as military power (e,g., Isa 11:2, 4; 10. Inclusive faith basis. 2:3; 42:2-4); a. Membership and activity are strongly faith-based b. with the result that this kind of leader will cause no rather than based on mere human initiative and resources harm (Isa 42:2-3). (passim). 5. Social justice. Justice is mainly social, i.e., caring b. Worship and other relationships to God seem pri- for all, rather than juridical or punishment-oriented (e.g., marily nonsectarian and nonexclusive, rather than requiring Isa 42:3-4). specific adherence to a central religion (e.g., Isa 19:23-25). 6. Restorative justice. Justice for dealing with wrong In fact, forming a new international people of God apparently actions is more restorative, while retributive justice is virtu- calls for a new hymnal.18 ally absent (e.g., Isa 2:4; 11:3; cf. 61:1-2). 11. Implementation: divine-human partnership. 7. No more war. The new community neither engages Whose job is this? Implementation is described as a partner- in warfare nor prepares for it, and in fact it envisions convert- ship, a combination of two things: ing a militarized economy to food production (e.g., Isa 2:4; a. Divine initiative and power (passim). Mic 4:3; Isa 9:5; Zech 9:10). b. The new people of God contributing willing hands, 8. No more conflict. Conflict is absent even from na- rather than sitting back and waiting to let God do it some day ture, which is no longer red in tooth and claw. Predators and (Isa 2:3). former prey sleep together; carnivores turn into herbivores; 12. Spirit of God. A special initiator, and indeed a con- lambs and toddlers are safe (e.g., Isa 65:22-25; 11:6-8). Al- siderable force for change and implementation, is the Spirit most certainly this language is hyperbolic and symbolic, in- of God, active and powerful in making things happen or em- tending to convey the idea of no more conflict among hu- powering the people of God to carry out the new mandate mans.16 (Isa 11:2; 42:1, 5; 61:1; cf. Joel 2:28-29, quoted in Acts 2). 9. Extent: whole earth. All peoples and nations are in- 13. Time frame: now. The new community is expect- vited or expected to join (Isa 2:2; 11:8; 42:1, 4; Zech 9:10). ed to get busy on this considerable agenda in the present, Jerusalem and Mt. Zion are only rarely mentioned, and seem rather than waiting for a special future, eschatological era to be symbols for the new people of God, rather than the lit- (Isa 42:6). eral Judahite capital (Isa 2:2-3; 65:25).17 B. Future or Present? 16. Biblical and Middle Eastern idiom carries a literary tradition of When is all this supposed to happen? Apparently the ac- representing powerful and warlike aggressors as lions or other pow- tions and values of this new community are to be implemented erful animals. For lions, see, e.g., Pss 10:9; 35:17; 57:4; Isa 5:29; immediately. Still, the indicators for a time frame need a careful Jer 2:15; 5:6; 50:17; Joel 1:6. look. We might begin with a point on Hebrew grammar, namely 17. Still needed is a study on the role of the temple in the new com- our understanding of the certitude perfect verb aspect, both in munity. On the whole it seems absent, or at least its normal use re- general and in these passages. The certitude perfect employs ceives little mention. The “mountain of the Lord’s house” in Isa 2:2 the perfect verb aspect (which normally denotes a completed is symbolic, not literal, in its Everest-like description as “the highest action) to represent something which is actually in the future as of the mountains.” The house and holy mountain in Isaiah 56:5-7 so certain that it can be described as if already accomplished. and 66:1 are unclear in various aspects. The holy mountain in Certitude perfects are used in large numbers in these new com- Isaiah 66:20 is an object of international pilgrimage; Isaiah 66:20 describes people from all nations arriving there “as an offering to the munity passages (e.g., for “judge” and “decide” in Isa 11:4). Lord” in symbolic language reminiscent of Romans 12:1-2. On the But when? How soon? The “prophetic per- one hand, this absence of the temple may seem a surprise in view of fect,” which was the name for this verb aspect in the old the stress laid on rebuilding the temple in some post-Exilic texts like Hebrew grammars, was considered to imply a time frame in the Ezra-Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah 1-9, and Malachi. On the other distant, eschatological future. But this was based more on theo- hand, this absence may come as no surprise in view of Jeremiah’s logical interpretation than syntactical evidence. Virtually every temple sermon (Jer 7:1-15; 26:4-6), and also in view of the inter- verifiable instance of the certitude perfect refers to the very near national character of the new community (Isa 2:2; 11:8; 19:23-25; or imminent future, such as the three verbs in Numbers 17:12: 42:1, 4; Zech 9:10). One almost gets an impression that the useful- ness of the temple, which was not God’s idea to begin with, had his predecessors and his successors” (“Ezekiel,” in The New Oxford pretty much played out or at least was no longer a priority in the Annotated Bible, ed. by Michael D. Coogan, 3rd ed. [Oxford: Oxford divine planning and activity. Malachi’s poignant wish, “Oh, that University Press], 1238). This exilic idea of a temple plan “as an someone among you would shut the temple doors . . .” (Mal 1:10) embodiment of the community’s values” would align closely with would seem to indicate considerable disenchantment with the rebuilt the values of the new community. temple in practice. What about the elaborate plan for building a temple in Ezekiel 40-48? As Stephen Cook points out, “This sec- 18. Compare the “new songs” in Pss 33; 40; 96; 98. Do any of the tion of Ezekiel does not prophecy a literal future for the Temple; new songs supersede previous, war-like hymns like the Song of rather, it offers a Temple plan as an embodiment of the community’s the Sea? For example, Psalm 98 looks like a reinterpretation of values. Though it has never actually been built, Ezekiel’s ‘literary Exodus 15. We need a study on “Psalms and Songs for the New temple’ has proved more enduring than the physical temples of both Community in the Later OT Witness.” • 27 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2

“The Israelites said to Moses, ‘We are perishing; we are lost, all VI. JUSTIFIED WAR of us are lost!’”19 AND THE OLD TESTAMENT WITNESS FOR TODAY In reality, there is nothing peculiar about this, because we use it in daily life. For example, a colleague points out that we By way of summary, this piece offers the following take commonly use this grammar without realizing it when ordering on the nature of the OT witness regarding Justified War for the food.20 “A waitress uses the certitude perfect all the time. After people of God today. receiving lunch orders, she repeats to each person at the table, A usable OT hermeneutic begins by looking where the OT ‘You had the chicken Caesar; and you had the cheeseburger. You points, and going on that journey, following the divine leading had the beef quesadilla.’ Now, she says this as if we had already to the creation of a new community, a new people of God, pro- eaten but before the cook even knows about the order. Res- claimed especially in a group of passages in Second Isaiah and taurants may sometimes be slow, but if this use of the perfect in other, related, prophetic witness. The NT witness points in tense were referring to millennia, we’d all be dust by the time the same direction, that is, to that same later, normative OT wit- the order was (ful)filled. In the OT use of the certitude perfect, ness. God orders a new kind of community where the inhabitants are That the later OT witness takes priority over the earlier has to feast upon peace, justice, and mercy, and God expects im- hermeneutical implications for the church today. We should as- minent (ful)fillment of that order, just as we do in a restaurant.” certain whether anything in the OT which is described as com- In short, the time frame in both cases, whether biblical witness manded or approved or worked with by God in the past has later or restaurant discourse, is not the distant but rather the very near been changed. A list of things so changed or left behind might future—a virtual now. include sacrifices and offerings, kingship, temple, Jerusalem, Along these lines, Isaiah 42:9 proclaims that earlier things the Sinai covenant, earlier prophetic oracles using the Sinai cov- are finished and something new is about to happen now: enant as a criterion, promised land, chosen people (in the exclu- sive sense for salvific purpose), and warfare of every type. See, the former things have come to pass, This hermeneutical journey passes through some important and new things I now declare; transitional territory, namely, the prophetic critique of militarism before they spring forth, which does not altogether prohibit warfare but which seriously I tell you of them. (Isa 42:9) undermines both the ethics and the practicality of the enterprise. This in turn prepares the way for the “no more war” requirement The question, of course, is what exactly are these new things? laid upon the new people of God in the later OT witness. Verses 6-7 give a list: As a result, the OT witness implicitly deals with Justified War by expecting the people of God to dispense with warfare I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, entirely—to end the types of actions and attitudes which can I have taken you by the hand and kept you; lead to warfare or support it—and to live in an entirely different I have given you as a covenant to the people, way. In other words, the OT witness on the subject of Justified a light to the nations, War can be summarized in two words: “No more.” to open the eyes that are blind, What then of the “light to the nations” which is part of our to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, original assignment? Indulging in a slightly procrustean meth- from the prison those who sit in darkness. od, I might imagine the following, based on none other than one (Isa 42:6-7) of the foundational descriptions of the new community and its leadership, Isaiah 42: The list includes a call from God regarding right actions, with divine leading and protection, to keep some kind of commitment I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, (covenant) which will bring light to the darkened international I have taken you by the hand and kept you; world and liberate people from bondage. I have given you as a covenant to the people, The implication is that God expects these actions now, in the a light to the nations. (Isa 42:6) present, without further delay or ado. That expectation would apply to the entire list of features of the new community, includ- Here “you” is the new community called into being by God, ing no more war.21 and the “light to the nations” is labeled a covenant, a binding 19. See already GKC 106n for a perfectum confidentiae “to express agreement. facts which are undoubtedly imminent.” It goes on to state, “This While the full terms of that covenant are not spelled out in use of the perfect occurs most frequently in prophetic language this passage, they are immediately linked to opening blind eyes (perfectum propheticum).” and to liberating prisoners from bondage (Isa 42:7). But in fact 20. Sharon Baker, email communication of Oct 22, 2006. they are linked in context to the entire work of the new servant leader of the new community, who will give birth to interna- 21. Here going farther than, e.g., Marvin Tate, who arrives at this door but stops at the threshold: “Our mission is clear. We are to rior has given to his people. . . .” (“War and Peacemaking,” 595). I move toward the vision of justice and peace which the Divine War- would say not merely “move toward” but go all the way. • 28 • Fall 2006 Gordon Brubacher tional justice and hurt no one in the process (vv. 1-4). ing to destruction or to life: Bringing about international justice without hurting any- one in the process would require the virtual absence of war, and “. . .the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are also the conversion of the current global military economy into many who take it. . . . [but] the road is hard that leads to something more productive and less harmful. This would be life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt 7:13-14) new indeed. So the new status of these features is here sum- marized as the “new things I now declare,” in contrast to the Obviously this observation is still true. However, a natu- “former things” which have passed (Isa 42:9). ral and serious question to ask is: “Can nonviolent alternatives Nor is this the only place in the OT bringing such good work?” As a matter of fact—literal fact—the answer is a simple news. Isaiah 49:6 links this “light to the nations” with world- “Yes.” That option works far more often22 than many people wide rescue or deliverance, an apt description of the release realize, though not always. But this is the option on which to from bondage to militarism which the world would experience. focus. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”—the path of obedi- Isaiah 51:4 identifies this “light to the peoples” as divine teach- ence and the road to success in ending war. But where there is ing and justice. The thought is quoted as mandatory for the new no will there is no way, no road to success, but only a path to people of God in Acts 13:47 where the writer identifies “you” as barren death. The choice is ours, and I vote for choosing life. “us”: “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation 22. For useful and informative surveys of successful nonviolent reso- lution to major conflicts, see, for example, Walter Wink, Engaging to the ends of the earth.’” the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination In larger summary and conclusion, the OT witness for the (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), chap. 13; Daniel L. Buttry, Christian people of God today expects us to work for an end to all war. Peacemaking: From Heritage to Hope (Valley Forge: Judson Press, Such a hope and expectation shines like a clear light across a 1994), chaps. 3-4. darkened global community in bondage to conflict of every In contrast, for the record of failure by the Justified War doctrine to kind. It illuminates the path for this difficult, yet required, and limit or prevent warfare, and the tendency of that doctrine func- utterly worthwhile journey. tionally to promote or support war instead, see Michael K. Duffy, The two roads still lie before us, the easy and the hard, lead- Peacemaking Christians: The Future of Just Wars, Pacifism, and Nonviolent Resistance (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1995), chap. 5. Gordon Brubacher is Professor of Old Testament and Archaeology and C. N. Hostetter Chair in Religious Studies at Messiah College.

• 29 •

FEATURE An Interview with George Hunsinger George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor my colleagues and I are doing everything we can to mobilize a of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He religious voice on Capitol Hill. also serves on the board of the Coalition for Peace Action and is the founder both of Church Folks for a Better America and PTR: How did your concern over the issue of torture develop the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). and how did the National Religious Campaign Against Torture On September 23, the Princeton Theological Review’s own W. come into existence? Travis McMaken sat down with Professor Hunsinger to ask him some questions about his work and other issues related to Hunsinger: I recently purchased a copy of Life Magazine from the theme of “Theology and Global Conflict.” July 17, 1970. I had tried to find an article online that I remem- bered reading years ago. This issue had the famous photo essay PTR: Professor Hunsinger, thank you for taking time out of on the “Tiger Cages” in Vietnam. As a result of that exposé, your busy schedule for this interview. Both as an academic investigations were begun in Congress. There was the ‘Pike theologian and as a committed political activist, you are perfect- Commission’ led by Otis Pike in the House, and the ‘Church ly situated to address the topic of “Theology and Global Con- Commission’ led by Frank Church in the Senate. That was re- flict.” What can you tell our readers about your various political ally the first time that I became aware of torture as being spon- initiatives? sored and condoned by our own government. This was back when I was in seminary. I’ve been asking myself, “What did I Hunsinger: I’m not sure quite where I’m going with Church know and when did I know it?” That was the first time, I think, Folks for a Better America. It’s on the back burner at the mo- that I was ever confronted with the awareness that this was not ment. It was a kind of step- something that the United States ping-stone into what became the government was avoiding. National Religious Campaign It used to be that the right had the The US government has a Against Torture. While I got mixed record, and of course the some project money for Church wallet and the left had the pen, but government is a complex insti- Folks, I didn’t ever get any seed then the right figured out that if tution. Until quite recently it money to build an organization. has had a strong reputation for I wanted to find an executive you had the wallet you could buy upholding human rights. The director, because I just couldn’t State Department issues a hu- do it all on my own. With the the pen. That has really happened man rights report every year and National Religious Campaign condemns countries that prac- Against Torture, everybody who in the years since Vietnam. tice torture on an administrative is making the organization work basis. But now it is becoming is doing it as a second full-time job, including me, but we can’t clearer that other parts of our government - especially the intel- go on this way indefinitely. We need to find a major donor, ligence services and the CIA, and more recently the “indepen- which we are working on. I was pretty close to burnout in June dent contractors” who engage in interrogations in places like and I’m getting back to that point now. We have our work cut Afghanistan and Iraq at the behest of the CIA - have a long his- out for us as far as funding goes, and this very week is a crucial tory of practicing torture and training in torture. one for torture and human rights. The CIA trained the intelligence services in Iran under the Shah, called SAVAK. The intelligence services in the Philip- PTR: Why is that? pines, in Chile, South Korea, Pakistan and in other places, all of them known for torture, had ties with the CIA. There exists this Hunsinger: Well, there is a bill before congress that the admin- whole intelligence network, this underworld, this netherworld. istration is trying to rush through, called the Military Commis- Right now, for example, some of the independent contractors sions Act, but which conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan in Iraq are hiring former interrogators from countries like South calls the “Legalizing Tyranny Act.” There is actually no real Africa and Chile. Apparently, they know how to find each oth- rush. It’s all for political reasons related to the upcoming elec- er. tion. As Jay Leno remarked, “President Bush said the United It’s quite dismaying and troubling that our government States is still under the threat of attack and will continue to be would be resorting to these kinds of practices. With the new right up until Election Day.” Senators McCain, Graham, and compromises that have just been struck between the three Re- Warner were holding out for a better bill, but a compromise was publican senators and the President, a loophole has been cre- struck and what is in the compromise is very dismaying. So, ated for the CIA once again. In its statement, which I essen-

• 31 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 tially wrote, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture hadn’t fully made up his mind. These are careful people. calls for America to “abolish torture now - without exceptions.” There really are credible sources of information out there. That’s the final sentence. Up until quite recently that seemed The Internet makes research and keeping up to date much easier like a shocking statement, because who would think to accuse than it used to be. There is a lot out there now on the Internet the government of making loopholes? But, it’s no secret now. – quality stuff. Bloggers get trashed in the mainstream media, The same is true about the matter of secret prisons. When Dana and maybe rightly so, but it’s a very complex and very diverse Priest of the Washington Post broke that story, she was vilified for set of materials that are out there. And when you’ve got a Yale publishing it, because she was supposedly endangering Ameri- law professor posting his views, and other distinguished law can efforts to make the country secure from terrorism.1 The US professors from all over the country, you can count on this being wouldn’t even ad- quality material. mit that there were I would say that at this point the National Religious On another such prisons. But note, there is a now the President Campaign Against Torture is unprecedented in its website called De- has openly admit- mocracy Now!4 ted it. That’s the religious diversity. There has never been a religious that gives an alter- pattern over the native version of years: these things movement of this kind before in Ameican history. the news. It is run are denied, and de- by Amy Goodman, nied, and denied, We have major Roman Catholic voices, we have for whom I have and finally it comes Jews, we have Muslims, we have evangelicals and a lot of respect. out – usually long She covers top- after the fact so that peace church people and mainline Protestants. ics that are often nobody pays much neglected and has attention anymore. That’s a pretty amazing mix! a critical perspec- If you care about tive that we don’t these things you can learn to find sources of information that tell often find. American politics right now is dominated by the far- you about it when it’s current and not ten or fifteen years later. right and the center-right. We don’t have a progressive political party or a progressive political voice that gets much credence or PTR: What are one or two of those alternate news sources that that has much access to the American people. Looking for that you use and would recommend to others who may be interest- missing progressive voice in sources like Amy Goodman and ed? Democracy Now! seems important. We’re somewhat unusual in that regard in the United States. Hunsinger: Through my recent work I’ve come into increas- Our media over the years have increasingly fallen under corpo- ing contact with people in human rights organizations. Human rate control. There has been a dumbing down of the news too. Rights First has been very important for me.2 These are very in- It’s moving much more in a tabloid direction. I really see this spiring people to know and be around. Torture is such a depress- in what has happened over the years to CBS. Back in the days ing topic, and it is encouraging to me to have seen the dedication of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, it was a really dif- of such fine, thoughtful, and grounded human beings. I’ve met ferent matter. When I listen to CBS news on the radio, mainly distinguished human rights lawyers like Scott Horton in New to get traffic and weather, there is always some sensationalist York City, who has a lot of inside information. story about a rape or a child who has been murdered or some But of things that might be more available to ordinary other gore. There is a place for something like that, but now people, I could mention a website that is run by a professor at it’s always in your face. You’re getting that kind of thing all Yale Law School. His name is Jack Balkin. He runs a website3 the time - there’s nothing like a good sex scandal - and if you and has some of the top international lawyers and human rights wanted to find out how many civilians have died in the Iraq war, experts in the country writing for him. Marty Lederman, espe- you could listen to CBS news 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 cially right now, who is at the Georgetown Law Center, writes days a year and you would never find out. You have to look for outstanding analyses every day. I noticed that one of his articles alternative sources. about this compromise bill was dated at something like 4:37 It used to be that the right had the wallet and the left had the AM. This guy was sitting up all night, and he said that he only pen, but then the right figured out that if you had the wallet you had a chance to read the 94 page document twice and that he could buy the pen. That has really happened in the years since Vietnam. The political right has massively funded all these 1. Cf. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti- major new think tanks, like the American Enterprise Institute. cle/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html Then these people write articles, and they get interviewed on 2. http://www.humanrightsfirst.org television. We’ve seen an increasing amplification of voices on 3. Cf. http://balkin.blogspot.com/ 4. Cf. http://www.democracynow.org/ • 32 • Fall 2006 An Interview with George Hunsinger the right and an increasing marginalization of anything beyond It started out as a project of Church Folks for a Better Amer- the center right, which passes these days as liberal. The myth ica. I had contact with Human Rights First in New York and they of the “liberal media” is part of what the propaganda machine were willing to help me. They said that at some point I might spews out, especially on the more vicious radio talk shows. want to reach out to Rabbis for Human Rights. Well, I had a lot It’s also interesting that in that 1970 issue of Life Magazine to do, it was on my mind but it wasn’t at the top of my list. So, that I bought there is also an article about a family that moved to I’m trying to think of who we could get at such short notice to be Canada because they were disillusioned with the United States speakers on the program, and Rabbis for Human Rights found and its Vietnam policy. These kinds of stories are out there for out about it and wanted to be part of it. They started helping us the American people to some degree, but the propaganda system organize and they pitched in with some money. Now all of a always manages somehow to recover its equilibrium. It’s as if sudden I have to find a way that they can have Shabbat services these stories don’t stick somehow - it’s like Teflon or something, during the conference. it doesn’t stick, it doesn’t take. And then the Islamic Society of North America finds out I know people have their own problems and their daily lives. about it and because the topic was important to them they were How much attention are they going to pay to political issues interested in having some speakers at the conference. So, I have that don’t seem to affect them directly? But it deserves atten- to figure out how to schedule Muslim prayers into the conference. tion when it’s a matter of bombing The conference schedule didn’t civilians or torture or horrendous If you snap off cruel, inhumane look the same from one day to the activities like overthrowing govern- next for about the last five weeks as ments in the name of democracy and degrading treatment off I was juggling these things around. and establishing a brutal dictator We also made a big outreach to like Pinochet over against Allende, and then narrow the definition evangelicals. We had a number of who was a democratic socialist. He very prominent evangelicals speak- was smeared as a communist and a of “torture,” in effect you’ve ing at the conference, including Da- threat to the hemisphere. He was kept the word but changed vid Gushee. His front-page cover murdered in the Pinochet coup, with story for the February 2006 issue the collusion of the CIA. the dictionary. Torture by any of Christianity Today called “Five I can’t remember the name of Reasons Why Torture Is Always the archbishop of Santiago, but I read other name is still torture. Wrong” was already written at the a book about this once. His deepest time of the conference.5 NRCAT is regret in life is that he didn’t excommunicate Pinochet. That’s making a special effort to include evangelicals and make them another thing we have to think about. It’s not just America and feel comfortable. We want them to be a part of this movement. American Christians. Christianity is an international commu- I would say that at this point the National Religious Cam- nity. There’s actually a book written by Latin American evan- paign Against Torture is unprecedented in its religious diversity. gelicals against the war in Iraq: Terrorism and the War in Iraq: A There has never been a religious movement of this kind before Christian Word from Latin America, Ediciones Kairos (2004) by in American history. We have major Roman Catholic voices, Rene Padilla and Lindy Scott. In similar church circles in our we have Jews, we have Muslims, and we have evangelicals and country this kind of stance would be unheard of. peace church people and mainline Protestants. That’s a pretty amazing mix! We’re not trying to work it out at the level of PTR: If we could return again to the National Religious Cam- beliefs and theology. Everyone comes to the table out of their paign Against Torture, what can you tell us about the make-up own tradition. of this group? Is it primarily a Protestant group of people? Is At the January conference, for example, before the meals I it even primarily a Christian group of people? Could we under- would just have a moment of silence. I did not try to construct stand it as some kind of new political ecumenism? some kind of generic religious prayer. Some conference mem- bers said to me, “Can’t you do more than just have silence?” Hunsinger: It’s a very young organization. It’s about nine And I said, “Well, I don’t believe in lowest common denomi- months old. Everything has to be taken in the frame of, “Let’s nator ecumenism.” In fact, I don’t believe in “inter-religious” wait and see.” I started trying to raise money for a conference services – partly because I don’t think that they are truly in- on “Theology, International Law, and Torture” in the summer ter-religious. There is almost always some sort of Protestant of 2005, and I got $10,000 right away. That kept me going, but grid that’s being imposed. At a place where there might be a then I didn’t get anything else. Finally, a donor that I was count- Scripture reading, they might let a Buddhist beat a drum, but ing on came through for me at the last possible moment in early that isn’t how a Buddhist would set it up. That’s not ecumenism November. I was locked into the Martin Luther King weekend to me. If the Buddhists are going to have their worship and oth- dates of January 2006 because it was the only time free when ers are welcome, fine, but trying to force them into a basically Princeton Seminary facilities could be used. So the conference Christian mold seems dubious. Even when it’s done with all had to be organized at breakneck speed. 5. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/23.32.html • 33 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 the goodwill in the world, there is still something imperialistic legal maneuvering to try to get around it. about it to me. So, there’s water-boarding. There’s also induced hypother- NRCAT has a commitment across the board to try to end tor- mia. This actually happens. It’s gut-wrenching to read about. ture and related abuses by our government without exceptions, They strip people naked and put them in these cold cells and without any loopholes – including loopholes for the intelligence pour water on them to get their body temperature down just services. We believe that above the point where they would die. And torture is morally wrong they have doctors on hand who use rectal ther- and we believe that it is Like the prohibition against mometers to take the victim’s temperature, and also counterproductive. get the person warmed up so that they can put Even from the standpoint torture, this issue of habeas the victim through the same process all over of patriotism and car- corpus is not just one issue again. That is still allowed under the new so- ing about national secu- called compromise. Induced hypothermia is al- rity, we believe – as many among others. It’s archetypal. lowed. Subjecting people to sleep deprivation people believe - that tor- and what’s called ‘long-time standing,’ where ture only makes matters It’s bedrock. It’s what separates for days people are chained to single positions, worse. There are a lot or that famous iconic picture from Abu Ghraib of people who see it that civilization from barbarism. of the man standing there with a hood over way. We have something his head and his arms stretched out with wires like 54 different organizations at all different levels, from lo- coming down. That posture is called “The Vietnam.” That’s the cal congregations to the National Council of Churches to the name for it in the CIA. It’s called The Vietnam, and it wasn’t Islamic Society of North America. We’re still hoping for the US invented in Abu Ghraib. There is a long history here. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They’re a little harder to get on The word “Torture-Lite” that has gained currency in recent board, but our commitments are the same as theirs and there are journalism is really an obscene term. Studies have shown that promising signs there. It’s a very diverse group, and the peg that “no-touch” torture in the form of sensory deprivation, which holds it together is a very basic concern is what the hood rep- for human dignity and for faithfulness to resents, and having God - however God is understood – in This is really very disturbing. It’s your arms extended not wanting to do anything that makes it or immobilized for possible for our government to resort to an alarming development within long periods of time torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading our society. It represents a major as a kind of self-in- treatment. flicted torture, these One of the things that make the cur- step away from Democracy, away are more damaging rent administration so extreme is that and more shattering to they have tried to sever the definition of from the rule of law, away from the the victim over time torture from the idea of cruel, inhumane than actual physical and degrading treatment. In international America that most people believe in. torture, than actually law, such as the Geneva Conventions or using electric shock. the UN Declaration on Human Rights, torture is linked in an These people are damaged for life. It’s not as if the use of tor- ironclad way with cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. If ture is something new in the conduct of American foreign and you snap off cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and then military policy, but it’s becoming much more blatant. It’s being narrow the definition of “torture,” in effect you’ve kept the word openly justified. but changed the dictionary. Torture by any other name is still Along with that, in the new compromise there is the matter torture. of habeas corpus, which in Latin means, “we have the body.” When the President says, “We do not torture,” he doesn’t This goes back to 1215, this goes back to the Magna Carta, to mean what ordinary people mean or what international law the Great Writ. Like the prohibition against torture, this issue means or even what some of our domestic law means. In recent of habeas corpus is not just one issue among others. It’s arche- discussion it has been a question of whether water-boarding is typal. It’s bedrock. It’s what separates civilization from bar- still torture. It is shocking to have to discuss such things. Wa- barism. If we start compromising habeas corpus, that brings ter-boarding is simulated drowning. This is a technique that our us one step closer to a police state. Habeas corpus means that government has admitted using in recent times, and for a while you can’t just arrest people and throw them into a dungeon and they were trying to say that it was excluded from the definition forget about them. You have to bring them to court and explain of torture. I found a woodcut from the 16th century that shows what the charges are. You have to give the detainee the right water-boarding and carved into the woodcut at the bottom it of self-defense. We’re trying to exclude the detainees that we says, “The Water Torture.” In the 16th century they knew how have, the numbers around the world right now climb into in the to call things by their proper names. There was none of this tens of thousands, from the basic right of habeas corpus. In the

• 34 • Fall 2006 An Interview with George Hunsinger recent Supreme Court decision that came down at the end of strokes, how would you go about making a theological case for June which instigated this new flurry of legislation, the Hamdan nonviolence? decision, the Supreme Court went out of its way to say that the military tribunals were illegal and did not provide sufficient pro- Hunsinger: I think the deepest consideration has to do with the tections to the defendants. theology of the cross. You can go to the Sermon on the Mount, At the same time, while the Court usually makes very nar- as many Christians have done, you can go to the Image of God, row decisions, and this is not a liberal court, they also went out as Roman Catholic theology often likes to do. I’m not opposed of their way to lift up Geneva Common Article 3. Common Ar- to that, it all has its place. But it’s a question of how does God ticle 3 is the bedrock provision of all the Geneva Conventions. in Christ confront evil and remove it? The strategy is a kind of It basically says what all the other established international laws divine ju-jitsu. Evil is defeated by giving it its full reign and for human rights say, namely, that there are basic protections showing that it does not have ultimate power. It’s overthrown against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that have to be by being absorbed and overcome. Jesus goes to the cross in or- honored and upheld. In its decision, the Supreme Court made der to bear the penalty of sin and death as a consequence of our human rights violations as committed by the United States en- fallen condition in order to save us from it. It’s an essentially forceable in a way that the torture nonviolent strategy, as it were, memos back at the beginning of But it’s a question of how does God on God’s part. the so-called War on Terror tried This was recognized in the to circumvent. in Christ confront evil and remove patristic period, when the Chris- The ‘torture memos’, which tian church was still largely if the Office of Legal Counsel pro- it? The strategy is a kind of divine not entirely pacifist in its con- vided for the President, claimed victions. There is a wonderful that the Geneva Conventions ju-jitsu. Evil is defeated by giving passage even at the end of “On were quaint and obsolete. All the Incarnation of the Eternal of a sudden after Hamdan they it its full reign and showing that it Word of God” by Athanasius. aren’t so quaint anymore, they does not have ultimate power. Like many theologians in the are the rule of law. In effect, patristic period, he understood the Supreme Court said that the It’s overthrown by being absorbed that Christianity meant peace President had committed crimes, and that the reconciliation which as had a lot of other people, by and overcome. was achieved for us by Christ in permitting these kinds of abuses our relationship to God had not and terrible forms of interrogation. It meant that there were no just a vertical but also a horizontal dimension. It had to do not loopholes. It meant that Geneva Common Article 3 applied only with confronting violence and evil, but also with a way of across the board, not only to the military but also to the intelli- overcoming it, by bearing it and bearing it away. gence services. Now this would6 compromise Geneva Common That became more complex over time, it was modified and Article 3, deny habeas corpus to a certain broad class of people, maybe rightly to some degree, but that pacifist strain in early and would give the President of the United States sole discretion Christianity became, after Constantine and Theodosius, far for any methods of interrogation that he sees fit to justify as a too marginalized. It has lived on only as a little side stream to so-called “interpretation” of the Geneva Conventions. the mainstream of Christianity. But it remains as an important It also gives the government the right to declare anyone, stream, which I would say that God has never allowed to disap- including a U.S. citizen, to be an “unlawful enemy combatant,” pear. It has always been a kind of corrective. In recent times which means you could be arrested and essentially disappeared, the whole question has become much more acute with the devel- with no due process of law. I’m not making this up. It’s what opment of weapons of mass destruction. There is a whole new I read from legal experts. A retired Foreign Service officer I’ve interest on the part of many thoughtful Christians and theolo- gotten to know, who is a now a dissident, just wrote an article gians in the resources available from the tradition for Christian called, “In Case I Disappear.” This is really very disturbing. peace-making. It’s an alarming development within our society. It represents God overcomes evil by a strategy of voluntary suffering and a major step away from Democracy, away from the rule of law, non-retaliation, by a kind of transcending of the evil without away from the America that most people believe in. resorting to it in kind. That, I think, is a profoundly Reforma- tional way of thinking about it, even though this line of think- PTR: Well, on that somber note, I’m afraid that I have to shift ing was not pursued much in the 16th century. I do not find gears a little bit and take our conversation in a more strictly this atonement-grounded approach in John Howard Yoder, who theological direction. You are teaching a class right now en- comes out of a more Anabaptist tradition. He doesn’t have what titled, “Toward a Theology of Nonviolence.” In very broad I would call a robust view of the Atonement – nor does Stanley Hauerwas. 6. The legislation in question has, since this interview, been signed But, in his book Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution, An- into law. • 35 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 dré Trocmé had the basic moves down. He was a Reformed pas- in the way Anselm went about this question in Why God Became tor. After World War II he became the head of the International Human, but they’re not at this level. Fellowship of Reconciliation. But during the Nazi occupation You actually put the question a bit wrongly, I think, as far of France and the Vichy regime, his congregation in the moun- as these recent critics are concerned. It’s an innocent human tains of southern France saved the lives of thousands of Jewish being that is tortured to death by a vindictive father in heaven. children. It’s a very moving story. He had prepared them ahead There is no Trinitarian frame for this, but there is certainly a of time through his preaching. They had thought about these Trinitarian frame in Anselm. This whole transaction occurs for kinds of things in advance. Young people who had met togeth- him with inner Trinitarian consent. This is divine suffering for er with him for Bible studies the sake of a larger good. The every week ran this whole re- We are looking at a very tendentious Father suffers as much as the sistance movement. Trocmé Son in the power of the Spirit understood this aspect of the and questionable move that I think is in Anselm, if we read him theology of the cross. fairly and in the spirit of what Really, it comes out of not really done in good faith. Labeling he is offering. God’s redemp- an understanding of substitu- tive suffering is undergone tionary atonement – not pe- Christ’s atoning sacrifice as a warrant in love for the sake of the nal substitution in the more for child abuse is about on the same world. People who don’t like familiar sense, but substitu- this thought often don’t have tion. This is really a Jewish level as calling Christians cannibals a very robust understanding concept. People who reject of sin nor of what it cost God vicarious atonement are really for celebrating the Lord’s Supper. to remove sin and death from cutting us off from our Jewish the world to bring about our roots. They are in danger of a kind of Marcionism. The idea salvation. It is a salvation promised not just for individuals of a great exchange (admirable commercium), as von Balthasar one-by-one, but also for communities. It brings hope for the rightly points out, is not only Jewish but also patristic. It’s in liberation of the whole of creation from the destructive forces of the patristic writers, they all understood this, they were all close sin, death and corruption. enough to the Jewish origins of Christianity not to write off the It’s a completely alienated way of framing the question and pattern of exchange where the guilt of the guilty is placed on the then of shoving it in the face of the church. I don’t regard it as innocent and the innocence of the innocent is transferred to the an instance of nonviolence on the part of the critics, because guilty. That’s a profoundly mysterious transaction. they haven’t made a serious effort to understand the teaching When Immanuel Kant and the enlightenment encountered of the church in a fair and sympathetic way. We are looking this kind of thing it made no sense to them at all. Kant thought at a very tendentious and questionable move that I think is not this was an abomination that one person should bear the guilt of really done in good faith. Labeling Christ’s atoning sacrifice as another, and of course within his framework that’s exactly right. a warrant for child abuse is about on the same level as calling But you have to let this other Jewish cultic framework, based in Christians cannibals for celebrating the Lord’s Supper. divine revelation, take precedence over these rationalistic, com- monsense considerations. Once you have a pattern of exchange PTR: Coming back to talking about nonviolence, do you be- where the innocent suffers for the sake of the guilty in order to lieve in what some people might call “utter” nonviolence? That take that guilt and bear it away, you’ve got the seeds of a whole is, is there ever a moment for a Christian individual or a Chris- communal strategy for thinking about a properly Christian re- tian as part of a nation to participate in actions of self-defense sponse to evil and violence. and national defense?

PTR: Now, we’ve bumped up against this tangentially, but Hunsinger: There are degrees of pacifism and there are degrees some people do argue that what we have in the event of the of non-pacifism. One of the texts we are using in my course on cross is an instance of divine torture, divine abuse, happening nonviolence this semester is entitled Waging Nonviolent Strug- between God the Father and God the Son. How would you ad- gle by Gene Sharp. He points out that many people who have dress that argument? engaged in successful nonviolent movements were themselves not necessarily opposed to resorting to armed struggle under Hunsinger: Well, I think it shows how alienated some of our other circumstances. Here you have kind of the opposite case contemporary theologians have become from the historic Chris- from where you started out in your question, but I want to make tian faith. They’re bringing an alien framework of judgment to a point. You have people who are not pacifist in principle or bear upon this. No one in the patristic period ever understood in any categorical sense who nonetheless resort to nonviolent the cross as sanctioning violence and abuse. Nor did poor An- strategies, because they are morally superior and because they selm in the middle ages, who often has to take it in the neck for promise to be effective. these things. I think that there are some fundamental problems Even Gandhi and Martin Luther King were not uncondi-

• 36 • Fall 2006 An Interview with George Hunsinger tional pacifists. It surprises people, but there are statements on they get you to say that there might be circumstances in which record from them to that effect. But in almost all circumstances a resort to other means of self-defense is justified, that it sup- they are committed to nonviolent approaches first and fore- posedly opens a very wide loophole. Even the Just War tradi- most. If you’re committed to nonviolence, as they were, armed tion, when it’s properly upheld and understood, has to allow that struggle is not the sort of exception that you actually plot out there are certain things that you and your government will not in advance according to some calculus, because at some point do even if it leads to defeat. you expect nonviolence to fail. Could there be times of excep- This is one of the reasons that I admire George Kennan. tion? Well there might be times when you might have to depart Here at Princeton Seminary back in the 1980’s I think it was, from a strictly nonviolent stance in order to defend yourself or he gave a lecture called “A Christian’s View of the Arms Race,” your neighbor or the vulnerable innocent, and there might be which was published in Theology Today. When it came out in times when it’s better to suffer and die for peace than to kill for a book of essays, The Nuclear Delusion, it was abridged so you peace. Nonviolent struggles didn’t get the full force of it. always bring about reprisals, Violence is not always as effective You can find it online because and sometimes even death, for all those old Theology Today those who put it into practice. as its cracked up to be, and it brings issues are online.7 Karl Barth moved very Kennan comes to the close to a strict pacifist posi- severe consequences in its train. And point where he says that there tion, but he never wanted to are certain things that we close the door on anything nonviolence isn’t always as ineffective would not resort to as Chris- without qualification. Life is as its cracked up to be, and can often tians even if it meant that we too complex and God is too might suffer defeat. He wrote: unpredictable. Barth called sow the seeds for reconciliation. In the “Those who [resort to military his pacifism, and this is what means] owe it to their reli- he saw indicated by the New Christian church in recent times there gious commitment to assure Testament, a practical paci- that the sufferings brought to fism, a pacifism in practice. He has been too much of a presumption in innocent and helpless people wasn’t willing to commit to an by the military operations are unqualified pacifism. favor of militarism and violence and held to the absolute minimum It was very largely, for too little in favor of nonviolence. We and this, if necessary, even Barth as for Trocmé, a pacifism at the cost of military vic- of witness – bearing witness to are starting to see the beginning of tory.” Kennan was regarded the love of God, doing so by as a “Christian realist,” but conforming to the pattern that redress of that imbalance. I am aware of no statement divine love took in the Incar- quite like this from Reinhold nation as it led to the Cross. God’s love was an enactment of Niebuhr. Kennan knew that it is better that we should suffer compassion that was willing to suffer and die rather than re- defeat than to engage in the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, taliate and destroy. The avoidance of retaliation and ultimate including non-combatants like defenseless women and children. destruction was central. The presumption for Barth was always That’s the pacifistic element within even the Just War tradition. in favor of non-retaliation and nonviolence first, and after that For Christian ethics, so-called military necessity is not fi- he believed that there might be times when you would be led to nally the over-riding consideration. People who look for these resort, as a last resort, to means that were not nonviolent. But loopholes are trying to get a carte blanche to do whatever they there’s a resourcefulness, and now also an accumulated body of think is “necessary” in order to protect themselves, whereas a re- historical cases where people have resorted to non-cooperation ally principled stance, whether regarding the Just War tradition and have avoided violence in social movements and have been or a relatively pacifist position or an unqualified pacifist posi- at least as effective as any resort to violence might have been. tion, holds that there is a point where there is a certain criminal- Violence is not always as effective as its cracked up to be, ity of the means to which we will not resort. Certainly torture and it brings severe consequences in its train. And nonviolence and related abuses ought to fall into that category, as well as the isn’t always as ineffective as its cracked up to be, and can often indiscriminate killing of civilians through bombing cities, which sow the seeds for reconciliation. In the Christian church in re- began on the Allied side during World War II. To be a Christian cent times there has been too much of a presumption in favor of means that there are some things more important than avoiding militarism and violence and too little in favor of nonviolence. military defeat. This imbalance is beginning to be addressed. You don’t have It used to be only fascists who would directly bomb ci- to be an extreme militarist or an extreme pacifist to exhaust the vilians. There are some very interesting speeches given by options. Franklin Delano Roosevelt against the Nazis and the fascists for I think it’s kind of a pseudo-question. People feel that if 7. http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1982/v39-2-article4.htm • 37 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 bombing civilians. “The bombing of helpless and unprotected tions that are concerned about justice and peace, in the long run civilians,” he stated, “is a strategy which has aroused the horror it’s not going to happen without a revitalized understanding of of all mankind. I recall with pride that the United States con- the place of Scripture in the Christian life. sistently has taken the lead in urging that this inhuman practice Read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. be prohibited.” Over the course of the Second World War that Pay attention to people like Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and was eroded, and it ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Paul Martin Luther King, who although his declared theology was Ramsey, who was the great advocate of Just War thinking in on the liberal side he had deep roots in the very different piety Christian ethics, could not defend the bombing of Hiroshima and theology of the black church. This is what really sustained and Nagasaki even if it meant dire consequences for the Allies. King, I think, and in those days there was not much access to an There are just certain things that you do not do or you loose the intellectually respectable form of evangelical Christianity which very reasons that make it worthwhile to try to fight and hold off we have now as people are finally understanding what theolo- anyway. gians like Barth and von Balthasar were about. Goebbels remarked something to this effect when he said, It’s a complex matter, but I just don’t see our churches as “Even if we lose we win because our values will have been in- being equipped for doing much of anything that’s seriously culcated into the ranks of our enemies.” This is why Thomas Christian because of the erosion that has taken place at this very Merton worried, and this was an extreme position and I don’t fundamental level. We’re not catechizing our young people, know if I would completely affirm it, that the West would end up they don’t know up from down in terms of basic Christian be- becoming too much like its enemies if it engaged in these kinds liefs. They’re not in congregations where family devotions are of military tactics. taken for granted or where Scripture is the norm as it points us to Feuerbach said, “You are what you eat.” But, even more the living authority of the living Lord Jesus Christ. deeply I think we could say, “You are what you hate.” You be- It’s a complex matter. It’s not just a matter of knowing what come what you oppose when you oppose it in that systematic websites to read and where to get valid sources of information. and really visceral way. It takes over. That’s part of the way in I would say that in the long run it’s easier to liberalize evangeli- which evil works. It insinuates itself into you by the very meth- cals than it is to evangelicalize liberals. Liberals are not terri- ods you chose to resist it. bly self-sustaining or self-perpetuating. These are more or less The principled stance that there is a bright red line that people on their way out. Not many people come into the church you will never cross, come what may, is absolutely essential to through liberalism. It’s good that we have it. Liberals are not Christian ethics. asleep at the wheel on the burning social and political issues of the day in the way that so much of the rest of the church is. PTR: Professor Hunsinger, you have been more than gracious But unless we have a kind of progressive evangelicalism with your time this afternoon. There is just one last question that is rooted in Scripture these things won’t be everything that that I would like to give you a chance to address. As a professor they could be. This is why I think that so many of the pro- here at Princeton Theological Seminary you are uniquely situ- gressive trends in Christianity, which of course I’m basically in ated to influence a generation of ministers. In closing, what one favor of, reach a glass ceiling. These people put forward pro- thing would you most like to say to that generation concerning gressive ideas beginning already in the 19th century with the the theme of Theology and Global Conflict? religious socialist movements in Germany and Switzerland and the Social Gospel movement in the United States. But it wasn’t Hunsinger: Calvin saw his whole work as a theologian as try- adequately rooted in the heart of the Gospel, and consequently ing to make it possible for ordinary Christians to understand the it never reached its full potential, and it continues to languish Bible. The Bible was not in the vernacular at the time of the today. Feminism in the churches hits a glass ceiling because Reformation and the interpretation of Scripture was closely held people don’t see beyond a certain point in the congregations by the papacy and the bishops of the Roman Catholic church. how it actually relates to the core of traditional belief, not to The people were just given certain doctrines to assent to and so mention everyday life. on. The Reformation was opposed to that. The Reformation Every time progressives have asked Christians to make a wanted to put the Bible in the hands of the people so that they basic choice between the historic Gospel and progressive poli- could read it and understand it for themselves, and so that it tics, they have lost. Christians are going to choose the historic could be their daily bread. There will be no serious resistance Gospel every time. This is a problem with the World Council possible in our churches without a solid grounding in Scripture. of Churches – it’s a big problem around the world. People get Of course there are many people who do have a living relation- disillusioned with the churches and its historic theology. They ship to Scripture who don’t understand it in the way that I’m don’t see the potential of overcoming this false dichotomy be- suggesting, so it’s not an absolutely sufficient condition by any tween a vibrant evangelical catholic Christian faith and a pro- means. But if there are seminarians and pastors who are con- gressive politics. That’s the split that we have to overcome and cerned about justice and peace, and who want to have congrega- that, in my own small way, I’m trying to work on myself.

• 38 • REFLECTION Breaking the Chain of Antagonism and Conflict: A Reflection on Vladimir Jankelevitch’s Works on Forgiveness Hyun Soo Kim

Every Wednesday since 1992, dozens of elderly Korean “Should We Pardon Them?”3 Jankelevitch illustrates the dif- women have gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. ficulty of forgiveness in a paradoxical way. In Forgiveness, Jan- Armed with pickets and flags, they shout slogans: “We want kelevitch relates forgiveness to the idea of “the instant.” That your earnest apology!” “Pay full compensation!” These wom- is, forgiveness is an event, which can be granted in an instant. en are determined and committed demonstrators, undeterred by Jankelevitch clarifies, “Terminal and initial all at once, the event heavy rains and snows. that is called forgiveness closes a continuation in order to begin They are former “comfort women” who were forced to another one. The instant of forgiveness terminates the anterior sexually serve Japanese soldiers in the Second World War era. interval and founds the new interval.”4 Thus, forgiveness can Drafted for military sexual slavery by the Japanese colonial gov- only take place paradoxically as a disappearing appearance. Ev- ernment, thousands of Korean women underwent unimaginable ery time it happens, forgiveness becomes an instantaneous and trauma and degradation. Since the early 1990s, Korean NGOs miraculous event of “gift” that is freely given by the offended have petitioned the Japanese government to take legal responsi- person to the offender. bility for the former Korean comfort women who are still alive. This instant of forgiveness as a gift points to the most im- However, the Japanese government has refused to take legal portant aspect of Jankelevitch’s argument: true forgiveness is responsibility or pay any monetary reparations to the victims. radically unconditional. Pure and true forgiveness, therefore, Instead, the Japanese government proposed that Japanese civil- forgives the inexcusable and the unforgivable. Jankelevitch ians set up a foundation to receive donations for the victims. emphasizes, “Forgiveness is there to forgive precisely what no The government classified this money as “gifts of atonement” to excuse would know how to excuse: for there is no misdeed that the victims.1 The failure of the Japanese government to take re- is so grave that we cannot in the last recourse forgive it. Noth- sponsibility for its past crimes continues to provoke the victims, ing is impossible for all-powerful remission! Forgiveness can whose 700th demonstration took place March 15, 2006. in this sense do everything. Where sin flows, Saint Paul says, This sad story represents the deeply embedded enmity which forgiveness overflows.”5 permeates the history of Korean-Japanese relations. A number This is the most powerful support for the unconditional for- of thorny issues, including this case, remain unresolved as the giveness that forgives the unforgivable. Such forgiveness does two countries fail to overcome their mutual antagonism. Both not seek any reason for forgiveness because seeking legitimacy countries perpetuate this problem. On the one hand, without makes forgiveness impure. Without depending on any remorse, Japanese judicial reparations, the Korean people are not willing excuse, or repentance, pure forgiveness forgives “everyone for to forgive and embrace the Japanese. The Japanese people, for everything for all times.”6 Unconditional forgiveness knows their part, reject this demand and resist confessing their wrong- neither impossibility nor limitation. In this sense, true forgive- doings in a way the Korean people perceive to be authentic. The ness is mad forgiveness. Only mad forgiveness creates “a new chain of animosity and conflict between the two parties only era,” “new relations,” and “a vita nuova.”7 Jankelevitch strongly lengthens. Therefore, both the Korean and Japanese people argues that we are morally obliged to practice this mad forgive- need an event of true forgiveness, an event that will break the ness. Forgiveness thus becomes a moral imperative. chain of hatred and conflict. Once an event of forgiveness be- However, in a January 3, 1965 article in Le Monde, “Should tween both peoples takes place, they can experience the fruits of peace, reconciliation, and a hopeful future. cago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). The French philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch offers us im- 3. Vladimir Jankelevitch, Trans. Ann Hobart, “Should We Pardon portant insights on forgiveness which are particularly instructive Them?,” Critical Inquiry 22 (Spring 1996), 552-572. here. In his two major works on forgiveness, Forgiveness2 and 4. Jankelevitch, Forgiveness, 149. Emphasis is original. 1. Etsuro Totsuka, “Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and Issues in 5. Ibid., 156. Law,” Ed. Keith Howard and Trans. Young Joo Lee, True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women (London: Cassell, 1995), 199. 6. Ibid., 157. 2. Vladimir Jankelevitch, Trans. Andrew Kelly, Forgiveness (Chi- 7. Ibid., 150. • 39 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2

We Pardon Them?” Jankelevitch protests against the possibil- for human beings to practice. For forgiveness to be meaningful, ity that the French government might rule the Germans’ crimes a certain aspect of reciprocity is needed. The question remains: legally prescriptible. Here, he pronounces the death of forgive- What sort of reciprocity is needed for the event of forgiveness? ness: “Pardoning died in the death camps.”8 According to him, To find an answer, we need to attend to the biblical instruction one cannot forgive the Germans for their crimes against the Jews on forgiveness. for two reasons. The Bible also provides apparently paradoxical statements First of all, the Germans’ crimes are imprescriptible be- on forgiveness. Some passages seem to suggest that forgiveness yond any statute of limitations, because they are crimes against is offered in the absence of repentance and as an unmerited gift humanity. In Jankelevitch’s view, the crime against the Jews (Math. 18:21-22). Other passages state that forgiveness can be is the most monstrous crime in history in the sense that it was given to those who are confessing and repenting their sins (1 “the product of the pure wickedness.”9 The Germans treated John 1:9; Luke 17:3-4). In my view, these paradoxical messages the Jews as sub-humans who do not have the right to be. They seem to imply a soft, yet realistic form of reciprocity concerning even considered existence itself to be an inexpiable sin for a forgiveness. As the gift of God’s grace, forgiveness “is there,” Jew, using this logic as a motive for Jewish genocide. Jankelev- always available for human beings. Before human beings re- itch categorizes this crime as metaphysical in nature and claims pent, the possibility of God’s forgiveness is open to every sinner. that forgiving this metaphysical crime would be immoral. He Without their human response of repentance, however, human writes, “When an act denies the essence of a human being as a sinners cannot make God’s forgiving grace their own. Though human being, the statuary limitations that in the name of moral- the former lexically comes first, both God’s gift of forgiveness ity would lead one to absolve that act itself contradicts morality. and the human response are inseparable. Finally, a new world of Is it not contradictory and even absurd to call for a pardon in this reconciliation and peace with God opens up for human beings. case?”10 In short, since the Germans’ crime is inexpiable, one This realistic logic of conditionality implies that God’s economy cannot forgive them. of forgiveness is not cheap grace. Furthermore, the Germans’ crime against humanity cannot The same realistic logic of reciprocity attested to in Scripture be pardoned because they never asked for forgiveness. Accord- can be applied to solve Jankelevitch’s dilemma and potentially ing to Jankelevitch, only the repentance of the guilty can make help alleviate the mutual enmity between the Korean and Japa- “a pardon sensible and right.”11 The possibility of forgiveness nese in the following way: First, the Koreans must assert that for inexpiable crimes comes only from true remorse on the part their forgiveness “is there” for the Japanese. This means that of the offender. Many former Nazis, however, remained unre- the victims’ invitation of the offender to the event of forgiveness pentant. Cynically, Jankelevitch asks, “Why would we pardon comes first. To put it differently, the willingness to forgive and those who regret their errors so little and so rarely?”12 There embrace comes first because forgiveness is a gift of the victims is no forgiveness for Nazis, he declares, because “there are no to the wrongdoers. This is equatable to the biblical conception reparations for the irreparable.”13 of grace and Jankelevitch’s idea of “mad forgiveness.” Jankelevitch leaves us with two contradictory views on for- Secondly, the Japanese must acknowledge that the impress- giveness, one unconditional and the other conditional. Jankele- ment of Korean women into sexual slavery was a crime that vitch, in Jacques Derrida’s view, turns from his early notion of denied these women’s very humanity, making it—to use Jan- unconditional forgiveness toward a judicial logic of forgiveness, kelevitch’s term—a “metaphysical crime.” Conceptualizing claiming that people are incapable of forgiving what they can- the crime in this way is central to Jankelevitch’s assertion that not punish.14 This judicial notion of forgiveness is problematic forgiveness for such an offense is only possible when the guilty in the way it accompanies the retributive logic of justice, which party confesses guilt. It also affirms the biblically held view that deprives forgiveness of its meaningfulness and fruits. in order to receive God’s grace the sinner must repent. There is How are we to understand the dilemma in Jankelevitch’s thus a limit to the gift of forgiveness, namely, the moral burden works between the unconditional logic of forgiveness and the on the part of the offenders, who must listen to the victim’s voice conditional claim of forgiveness? In his inconsistency, in fact, and confess their wrongdoings. This is the condition of justice Jankelevitch offers us a practical lesson on forgiveness. The that makes forgiveness possible and effectual. If both sides take unconditional logic of forgiveness remains almost impossible these steps, justice can become restorative and not retributive. In so doing, the victims and the wrongdoers create space for 8. Jankelevitch, “Should We Pardon Them?” 567. the event of reconciliation between them, thus completing the 9. Ibid., 556. process of forgiveness. With the chain of enmity broken, a new 10. Ibid. future opens up for both parties—both Korean and Japanese, soldier and comfort woman—a future shaped not by the enmity 11. Ibid., 567. of sin but by the peace of reconciliation. 12. Ibid., 568. 13. Ibid., 571. Hyun Soo Kim is an ordained pastor in rd 14. Jacques Derrida, Trans. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes, On The Presbyterian Church of Korea and a 3 year PhD Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (New York: Routledge, 2001), 37. student at Princeton Theological Seminary. • 40 • REFLECTION How Can a Pastor Serve In the Armed Forces? Mark S. Winward

Anyone who has served in a combat zone is all too aware members must find the moral courage to step aside regardless of that war is a nasty, brutish affair. When all pretenses of glory are the repercussions. stripped away, we see in war’s face the wasteful desecration of Because of the necessity of a standing military force, ser- human life. War diverts limited resources, consumes precious vice members cannot be at liberty to lightly pick or choose in lives, and destroys the fruits of our labor. As a military chaplain which conflicts they will participate. The nature of modern war- now studying at Princeton Theological Seminary, the politely fare is sufficiently complex as to demand years of experience, unasked question is, “Why in continued equipment maintenance, and the world would a pastor ever constant training. Warfare was simpler want to be involved in such an If we grant that the military is in the time of the early American mili- activity?” While many people tias, but today, these kinds of demands simply contend Christians—let an unfortunate necessity of a dictate that any credible standing force alone pastors—should have cannot simply spontaneously arise nothing whatsoever to do with fallen world, we simply cannot when faced with a specific national cri- the military, others do not un- prohibit Christian participation sis. Therefore, the common good of a derstand the role of military secure nation necessitates the continued chaplains. without creating an untenable commitment, participation, and profi- Regrettably, in a fallen ciency of its service members. world, it is necessary for nations double standard. This commitment is enforced by to retain military forces for their the Uniform Code of Military Justice defense. Absent a national defense, we simply cannot guarantee in prohibitions against “unaccounted for absences” and “deser- our national security. If we grant the military is an unfortunate tion” (i.e., absences of greater than 30 days). Unlike members of necessity of a fallen world, we simply cannot prohibit Christian most other vocations, service members are not at liberty either participation without creating an untenable double standard. In to refuse a lawful order or spontaneously to resign without se- such a society, Christians would rely on non-Christians to per- vere repercussions. The compulsory nature of military service, form morally objectionable, but necessary, tasks. Jesus called though, is fundamentally necessary for the good order of soci- those who would follow Him to be the salt and ety. In a democracy, the light of the world. Consequently, if an institution is military serves the civil necessary for the legitimate functioning of a soci- Chaplains, at the most basic authority—presumably ety, Christians not only can but should be involved level, affirm the fundamental acting in accordance in that institution. with the same Constitu- The problem is: there always exists a potential worth of all persons—friend tion that service mem- for the armed forces to be used for tasks other than bers swear to support legitimate national defense. A Christian service and enemy alike. and defend. At its most member, thus, may find him- or herself in an un- basic level, our Consti- just conflict. Those in law enforcement face a similar dilemma. tution conceives of the military as a weapon in the hands of that Few theologians question the legitimacy of Christians serving civil authority. Just as a soldier reasonably expects his or her as police officers despite the potential of having to enforce an weapon to function when employed, our Constitution assumes unjust law. service members will perform their duty when ordered by law- Does it not follow a Christian may serve in the military even ful civil authority. We need only recall history’s many military though there exists the potential of having to participate in an coups to recognize that a self-serving military is contrary to the unjust war? No service member, though, is expected to com- good order of a civil society. Military service, thus, cannot be ply with an order that is unlawful or unconstitutional—having had without military discipline. Unless Christians surrender the sworn to support and defend the Constitution. It is certainly a role of national defense to non-Christians, Christians in the mili- possibility that, on rare occasions, service members may find a tary must assent to military discipline—even given the risks for conflict so at odds with their faith that they cannot continue to possible conflicts of conscience. participate in good conscience. In such extreme cases, service Military chaplains act in a capacity quite different, though,

• 41 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 from other service members or clergy. Regardless of their branch to compromise their distinctive character as ‘outsiders.’ This oc- of service or faith group, military Chaplains serve a unique role curs when a chaplain falls into the error of becoming an officer in ministering to those entrusted to their care. Military chaplains who happens to be a pastor rather than a pastor who happens maintain a precarious balance by bearing witness to their faith as to be an officer. When this tragically occurs, a chaplain unwit- both insiders and outsiders. As insid- tingly becomes part of the machinery ers, chaplains may find themselves in Unless Christians surrender of war thus capitulating to the State a combat zone. As outsiders, they are his or her representation of the Prince recognized by the laws of war as non- the role of national defense of Peace. Yet the chaplains who faith- combatants—prohibited from carry- fully cling to their distinctiveness in ing weapons or participating in action to non-Christians, Christians the midst of the darkness and chaos of against the enemy. As insiders, chap- war can serve as extraordinarily pow- lains are commissioned officers serv- in the military must assent erful witnesses to God’s Light. In an ing at the pleasure of the President. As to military discipline—even environment where it is all too easy to outsiders, they are ordained pastors forget about God, the very presence who continue to serve only with the given the risks for possible of a chaplain reminds service men endorsement of their denomination and women whence they have come or faith group. And as insiders, chap- conflicts of conscience. and to whom they belong. Chaplains, lains go everywhere their troops are then, at the most basic level, affirm called—be it on base, in a combat zone, or on the sea. But as the fundamental worth of all persons—friend and enemy alike. outsiders, chaplains focus not on operations but on the moral, In faithfully upholding this principle, a chaplain stands witness spiritual and emotional well-being of the service men and wom- to the principles of a loving Creator in whom one finds account- en under their care. In sum, despite the fact that chaplains are ability, assistance, and hope. outsiders by virtue of their role, ordination and mission, service Military service frequently calls young men and women members primarily accept their chaplains as insiders by virtue away from the support of family, friends and faith communities. of their wearing the same uniform, living under the same hard- Sacrificing many of the freedoms Americans take for granted, ships, and enduring the same hazards. they serve in the most demanding of conditions, in the farthest Insiders by virtue of presence, outsiders by virtue of call- reaches of the world, at hazard to their own safety. A chaplain’s ing, chaplains are no less than ambassadors of God. Indeed, the credibility is earned only by sharing in those same sacrifices. If nasty, brutish character of war is the antithesis of the Prince of ordained men and women will not step forward to bear the Light Peace. Close association with combatants can tempt chaplains to them, who will?

Chaplain Mark Winward is currently a ThM student at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has proudly served in the Navy since 1986 and is an ordained Episcopal priest.

• 42 • REFLECTION The Sword that Christ Came to Bring: An Instance of Canonically Theological Exegesis W. Travis McMaken

Introduction is the government that has a sword here, not Jesus or Christians, With the publication of the Dictionary for Theological In- this passage does not help us figure out what kind of sword Jesus terpretation of the Bible,1 and as the first issues of the Brazos was talking about. Theological Commentary on the Bible begin to roll off the press, A sword shows up again in Ephesians 6.17. Paul is discuss- theological exegesis has achieved the academic respectability ing the armor of God and he tells us to, “Take…the sword of the and staying power that its proponents have worked toward for Spirit, which is the word of God.” From this we are led to con- many years. Practitioners of theological exegesis, or of “theo- nect the idea of a sword with that of the word of God—Scrip- logical hermeneutics,” are those whom have become convinced ture. Hebrews 4.12, which is the next passage wherein we find that the general hermeneutic strategy of the various forms of a sword, strengthens this idea. Here, the word of God is again historical-critical exegesis is not properly suited to the interpre- described as a sword. But it is not just any sword. This sword tation of Scripture. Because Scripture is the unique instrument is both living and active, and it is even sharper than a double- of God’s communicative activity, so the argument goes, it re- bladed sword. It pierces so deeply that it gets to the middle of quires a hermeneutic strategy that recognizes this and seeks to our bones, and it does this in order to judge our thoughts and understand it as such.2 This is not to set aside historical-critical intentions. We have to ask ourselves if, in light of everything exegesis, but to move beyond it by asking further questions of else we know about Jesus, it makes sense that this is the kind of the text. These questions have to do both with how we might sword in which he would be interested. better understand the text in light of the Christian theological Perhaps the most important place that we find a sword in the tradition, and with how we might better understand the text in New Testament is in Revelation 19.11f:3 light of the canon of Scripture as a whole. In what follows, we pursue an understanding of the canonical context of Jesus’ say- Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! ing in Matthew 10.23, “I have not come to bring peace, but a Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness sword.” Our discussion centers around the New Testament uses he judges and makes war. 12His eyes are like a flame of of the word “sword,” and seeks to answer questions about what fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name kind of “sword” Jesus brings. How is it that Jesus wages war? inscribed that no one knows but himself. 13He is clothed in How is it that he exercises power? What kind of “sword” did a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of Jesus come to bring? God. 14And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15From his What kind of sword? mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the We begin our survey with John 18, where Peter cuts off the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will ear of one of the chief priest’s servants, Malchus, who was a tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the member of the party sent to arrest Jesus. Jesus miraculously Almighty. 16On his robe and on his thigh he has a name healed the servant and rebuked Peter for his action. If Jesus inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” (NRSV) came to bring a sword like Peter thought, this would have been a perfect time to put such a sword-wielding plan into action. But Here we find a depiction of Jesus returning to the earth. Jesus didn’t. This exchange helps us to understand that by say- This is a both a striking and a fearsome image. The battle-scene ing he was bringing a sword, Jesus did not mean he was going to kicks into high gear a few verses after the sword appears, but lead an armed revolution. we need not be concerned with that. What we need to notice is The next place we hear about swords in the New Testament the location of the sword in this image. Jesus, the King of kings is in Romans 13, where Paul warns the unlawful that governing and Lord of lords, comes riding out of heaven on a white horse. authorities do “not bear the sword in vain.” However, since it His eyes are filled with fire; he has a bunch of crowns stacked on his head; and he has blood on his whites robes. His name is 1. Vanhoozer, ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2005. 3. My interpretation of Revelation 19 is deeply indebted to Rich- 2. Cf. Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s “Introduction” and Daniel J. Treier’s ard B. Hays’s work. Cf. especially Richard B. Hays, “Revelation: entry on “Theological Hermeneutics” in Dictionary for Theological Resisting the Beast,” pp. 160-186 in The Moral Vision of the New Interpretation of the Bible for a much more scholarly treatment of Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary this material. Introduction to New Testament Ethics (HarperSanFrancisco; 1996). • 43 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 the Word of God and a sword is coming out of his mouth with what Jesus is best known for, we might get the idea that Jesus’ which to strike down the nations. robes are stained with his own blood, the blood he shed for us If we are really paying attention, we realize that something on the cross. This image of Jesus riding out of heaven, soaked is off in this picture. Where does a warrior usually hold his in his own blood, with a sword coming out of his mouth instead sword? The sword should be in Jesus’ hand, but instead, it is of in his hand, is not what we expect. What we expect is an im- in his mouth. Furthermore, Jesus is age of power defined by the sinful here called the “Word of God,” and If Jesus came to bring a sword world around us. We expect to see we saw that the image of a sword is an image of Christ with a sword in often connected to the notion of the like Peter thought, this would his hand, striking down his enemies word of God. Is Jesus himself the and splattering their blood all over sword that he came to bring? Is Je- have been a perfect time to put his robes. sus himself what will upset the false such a sword-wielding plan into This is not the image shown to peace of the world—a peace estab- us, because we are dealing here with lished by the Roman Empire through action. But, Jesus did not. the kind of power that we will one the use of swords (Pax Romana)? Is day encounter at the end of time. In Jesus God’s sword that will destroy and render unnecessary the the end, Jesus, the word of God, God’s sword, will come again. kind of swords the Roman Empire used? What does all this He will speak the truth, and this is the most powerful weapon mean? of all. There is one more important thing to notice here. Jesus’ The truth is that God loves us and that Jesus came to earth robes in this passage are bloody. But how did they get bloody? not to condemn us, but to redeem us and free us from sin. In- He is just now riding out of heaven. The battle does not start for deed, Jesus came to bring the sword, but this is not the same a few more verses, so it cannot be blood from the enemy. How kind of sword that the Roman soldiers carried. He came to bring did his robes get bloody? If we stop a moment and think about the sword of the Gospel. W. Travis McMaken, an MDiv Senior at Princeton Theological Seminary, is Book Review Editor for the Princeton Theological Review and Vice-Moderator of the Theological Students Fellowship

• 44 • BOOK REVIEWS Creston Davis, John Milbank, and Slavoj community as the center for a revolutionary praxis that counters the hegemony of capital. Zizek, Eds. Theology and the Political: The The volume is especially interesting in that it brings together New Debate. Durham: Duke University both Christian and atheist voices in an attempt to find a common Press, 2005, pp. 496. $29.95 (paperback) language (to use Rowan Williams’s metaphor from the intro- duction) for discussing the relation between religion and soci- ety. Alongside those in the R.O. camp are noted scholars such The fifth publication in Slavoj Zizek’s SIC series, Theology as Terry Eagleton, Simon Critchley, and Antonio Negri. These and the Political, is the product of a conference at the University disparate voices are brought together with the aim of forging a of Virginia entitled “Ontologies in Practice.” In a broad variety (theo)political ontology that will sustain a post-Marxist form of of ways, the essays in this volume work from the assumption revolutionary praxis. that current political issues must be addressed on the level of on- The result of this collaboration is a generally consistent tology. The discussions include the nature of the political sub- reader, though one that remains inaccessible to those not already ject, difference, politics beyond ontotheology, and materialism. familiar with the literature on political ontology. The contribu- Philip Goodchild, in his essay on “an eschatological ontology,” tions have lofty goals - “Toward a Theological Materialism,” states what functions as a kind of credo among these various “Rewriting the Ontological Script of Liberation,” “The Theo- contributors: “Ontology thus informs practice” (129). logical Praxis of Revolution” - and though always stimulating, For those familiar with Radical Orthodoxy, this volume they generally demand an audience well versed in modern phi- serves as a compendium of the most recent work in that move- losophy. Even so, a collection of this caliber on such a timely ment. Most of the major players in R.O. are represented here, subject is to be welcomed. including John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Conor Cun- ningham, Daniel M. Bell, and Graham Ward. Many issues ad- D. W. Congdon; dressed by Radical Orthodoxy are present here as well, such as MDiv Middler, Princeton Theological Seminary, the interaction with continental philosophy, the reinterpretation General Editor, Princeton Theological Review, of Augustinian and Thomistic thought, the rehabilitation of the Vice-Moderator, Theological Students Fellowship. analogia entis, and the consistent emphasis on the ecclesial Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian but controlled by demonic forces. The radical alternative - the “kingdom of God” - was inaugurated by Jesus and is none other Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is than the “radical, non-commonsensical, ‘power-under’ love” Destroying the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: that “reflects the nature of God and looks like Jesus” (42). Chapters 4-5 illustrate from historical and contemporary ex- Zondervan, 2006, pp. 208. $19.99 amples how the kingdom of God has been co-opted by the king- dom of the world and made little more than a religious version The Myth of a Christian Nation arose from a sermon se- of the kingdom of the world. Boyd suggests that this co-opting ries that cost mega-church pastor and theologian Gregory Boyd is most clearly seen in the motto: “Taking America Back for twenty percent of his five-thousand member congregation in the God,” which for Boyd is problematic at best and idolatrous at time leading up to the 2004 Presidential election. Myth centers worst. Chapters 6-8 illustrate five negative consequences seeing upon Boyd’s premise that the kingdom of God is not the king- America as a “Christian” nation. In his estimation, such rheto- dom of the world because God exercises power differently than ric harms global and local mission work, Christian spirituality, the world. While the kingdom of the world imposes its ideals individual witness, and the advancement of God’s kingdom in through forceful “power-over” others, the kingdom of God ad- the world. In the final chapter, Boyd wrestles with five questions vances through peaceful “power-under” (14). Based on this dis- concerning Christianity and violence. tinction, Boyd argues that “a significant segment of American Even though Myth operates out of theological assumptions evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry” about the kingdom of God, it is not a work of theology. It is because it “fuses the kingdom of God with a preferred version a work of Christian ethics. Perhaps because of previous alter- of the kingdom of the world” (11). It is no wonder, then, that cations with acerbic critics in the Evangelical Theological So- the sermon series and the resulting book were and remain con- ciety, Boyd focuses on what unites Christians - the cross and troversial. discipleship. Boyd even suggests that evangelicalism’s lack of While controversial, the book is not difficult to follow. Christ-like love should be counted as heresy (cf. 83, 134). The Boyd assumes that being “Christian” means looking like Jesus, American churches’ political division and the resulting partisan who died for those who crucified him. Chapters 1-3 develop the shouting-match do not exhibit kingdom love. And this is more argument that since no country has ever looked like Jesus then than heresy for Boyd; it is idolatry. no nation has ever been “Christian.” All nations are one form or Boyd points to two Net Testament disciples, Simon and Mat- other of the “kingdom of the world” - the power set up by God thew, as a striking example of opposing political views work-

• 45 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 ing together for God’s kingdom. In Jewish politics, Simon was not constrained on either the right- or left-side by kingdom-of- the leftist and Mathew the member of the vast right-wing con- the-world partisan politics. spiracy. Boyd remarks wryly, “To compare them to, say, Ralph Comparing the two kingdoms by their relationship to power Nader and Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t come close” (62). Instead is both helpful and insightful. However, Boyd stumbles theo- of allowing political differences between Simon and Matthew to logically when defining the two kingdoms solely in these terms. work against his mission, Jesus preached the kingdom of God Whereas classical conceptions of the kingdom of God focus on and did not allow his disciples to be co-opted by the kingdom topics of righteousness and obedience to the rule of God, Boyd of the world. Though the divisions were deep, real, and rawer frequently objectifies the principle of self-sacrificial love, going than the worst in modern politics, the zealot and the tax-collec- so far as to say that it was “in the power of self-sacrificing love” tor worked together for the kingdom of God. that Jesus himself put his trust (34). While Boyd notes that the Boyd argues that evangelicalism’s growing politicization kingdom of God always looks like Jesus dying on the cross for and polarization, in direct contradiction to the example of Simon those who crucified him, one possible implication is that Jesus’ and Matthew, bears witness to a harrowing reality - American death and resurrection only have significance in their witness to Christians have handed over God’s kingdom for a preferred vi- the efficacy of self-sacrificial love. Had Boyd chosen to define sion of the kingdom of the world. If the American church were the two kingdoms in terms of righteousness and obedience (and to seek “wisdom from above,” Boyd contends, it could see be- how those are enacted and instituted in Christ), his deep and yond its partisan conflicts to distinctly kingdom-of-God solu- often powerful analysis could have rested on surer theological tions based on the needs of the moment and the principle that the foundations. kingdom of God looks like Jesus dying for those who crucified Despite these problems, Myth is a wonderful choice for him. study groups or church-based Christian education classes seek- In following Christ’s example, Boyd suggests that king- ing to engage the topic of faith and politics, and it will continue dom-of-God solutions become things to be done instead of ar- to cause American Christians (conservative and liberal alike) to guments to be won. The dispute between Matthew and Simon rethink the practical implications of their allegiance to God’s is not overcome by a vote; it is overcome by Christian prac- kingdom for their relationships with politics, policy, and the Si- tice (cf. 124). Again and again, Boyd maintains that the ques- mon or Matthew across the aisle. tion Christians should be asking themselves and others is not, “How should we vote?” but, “How should we live?” or “How Jason Ingalls (PTS MDiv, ’06); do you bleed?” (143, 146). As Christ exercised “power-under” Vanderbilt University, the world by bleeding on the cross, so should Christians exercise Graduate and Faculty Ministries “power-under” by self-sacrificial acts of Christian love that are (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship).

Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith: erwas has now chosen, in Performing the Faith, to add Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his list. Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence, Bonhoeffer is an inspired choice, for he is certainly part of Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004, pp. 7 any discussion of Christians and nonviolence. Performing the + 252. $21.99 Faith is an examination of Bonhoeffer’s claim that a community of peace can only exist if it does not rest on lies and injustice. Many readers are struck by the power of Bonhoeffer’s argu- In another collection of timely, insightful and entertaining ments, along with that of the testimony provided by his actions, essays, Stanley Hauerwas engages a wide variety of topics in but few agree with Hauerwas that these arguments are norma- an attempt to answer critics while also following the trajectory tive beyond the original totalitarian context in which they were of arguments he has made since his career began. To the reader made. While few would argue that the church did not need to unacquainted with Hauerwas’ unique point of view, Performing become visible in the midst of Nazi Germany, the role of such a the Faith may seem like a merely random collection of essays. It visible alternative to society is much more difficult to reconcile certainly would be merely random were it not for the earlier col- with democratic politics. But, does that make it less necessary? lections of essays, articles, and observations he has published. Perhaps liberal democracies have as hard a time telling the truth It would be much “easier” if one could begin to study Hauer- as any other political system. Those who rule on behalf of the was by opening a systematic treatment of theology or ethics in people can sometimes hide the truth even from themselves. In which all topics were dealt with from beginning to end. But making these arguments, Hauerwas understands himself to be Hauerwas intentionally remains “in the middle of things” where arguing, alongside Bonhoeffer, that the church must have a vis- theology is a conversation that moves effortlessly from liturgy ible political existence in its own right even within a “peaceful” to ethics and back again. Following Hauerwas’ work requires democracy. one to enter into a discussion built upon his earliest publications In the next set of essays Hauerwas again takes up many and engaging many other thinkers along the way. Moving from themes and ideas from his earlier works in order to make clear John Howard Yoder to Karl Barth to Alasdair MacIntyre, Hau- the connection between truthfulness and nonviolence. These

• 46 • Fall 2006 Book Reviews topics range from the performing arts to Aquinas and Wittgen- Mark Lewis Taylor, Religion, Politics, and stein. Telling the truth is a practice that cannot be replaced by a theory. Should one forget one’s own contingency, telling the the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers and truth becomes impossible. Christian truth-telling requires that American Empire. Minneapolis, MN: For- Christians acknowledge the contingency and particularity of tress Press, 2005, pp. xiv + 194. $16.00 their own story. To clarify any misconception, Hauerwas even weighs in on the appropriateness of the label “narrative theo- (paperback) logian.” He fears that the many assumptions lurking within the term “narrative” have made it problematic. Narrative is no “How did we get here?” That is the question that burdens apologetic device, according to Hauerwas, nor is it an attempt so many American minds when they hear of the ever-growing to reduce the work of theology to storytelling. Narrative is im- number of casualties in the Middle East, the torture of prison- portant precisely because Christians have one, and this Christian ers, wire tapping, and the now revealed secret prisons. Since narrative makes unavoidable claims about the way the world is. 9/11, questions about American policies and practices abroad This peculiarly Christian narrative is inseparable from a particu- and domestically have given pause even to some of the most larly Christian ethic, neither of which can be divorced from the ardent Bush supporters and the question naturally arises, “How truthful performance that the church calls liturgy. This second did this all come to pass?” Mark Lewis Taylor seeks to answer set of essays concludes with “Suffering Beauty: The Liturgical this question by analyzing the political posturing and rhetoric of Formation of Christ’s Body”. Here Hauerwas continues his la- the Christian Right and neoconservatives. ment that ethics has been divorced from liturgy, and prayer from In Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 the moral life. Powers and American Empire, Taylor explores two specters of The book ends with a gracious reply to Jeffrey Stout, whose American politics that have coalesced and risen to power during Democracy and Tradition points to Hauerwas as the source of the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11. This event caused widespread Christian resentment against democracy. While this not only physical damage to those who were directly impacted. postscript will surely provide for a fruitful discussion with Stout It also landed a blow to the national psyche. In order to reclaim and others about the role of theological convictions in democrat- a sense of belonging, identity and security, a brand of national- ic societies, Hauerwas’ own sermons and reflections on Septem- ism emerged that was tinged with the cultural residue of Ameri- ber 11, 2001 should serve to inform a genuine understanding of can romanticism and contractual liberalism. the type of Christian engagement that Hauerwas is advocating. American political romanticism is the first specter to which Hauerwas’ writings on September 11, 2001 are not the product many Americans have fallen prey. As Taylor defines it, Ameri- of an impartial bystander more interested in his own morally can romanticism celebrates “past national forms as ideals for the virtuous community. Rather, “A Pacifist Response” is a plea present” (51). American romanticism extols a mythic ideal of for the truth to be told. Hauerwas is critical of how quickly the past, seeking a return to the past as the greatest hope for the and blindly America turned to war in the wake of September 11, future. This includes resisting change and attempting to over- arguing that the desire for revenge drowned out the silence and turn court cases, such as Roe v. Wade. The Christian Right often reflection necessary to see how one might tell the truth. America promotes this kind of American romanticism. It is helpful to turned instead to its tried and true method for forgetting how note that the term “Christian Right” does not mean conservative badly terrorism hurts: killing. That America would do so should Christians, but refers to a “subset of conservative Protestants be alarming not only to all Christians but to all Americans. A in the U.S., one that adheres to and is committed to develop- community of peace cannot be forged by lies and violence. ing an aggressive U.S. American political romanticism” (x). Hauerwas believes that the manifold lies necessary to produce Within the celebration of the past, the idea often emerges that the “war on terror” are destructive to any community that claims the United States is a country blessed by God and as the bearer peace for its members. To seek the peace of the city, one must of God’s truth to the world. The blending of the Christian faith speak the truth to the city. with political activity within the current administration can be In a time of global conflict and the possibility of a new clearly seen, for example, in the final line of many of President American imperialism, the arguments presented in Performing Bush’s speeches: “May God continue to bless America”. For- the Faith could not be more relevant. Even Christians who dis- mer Attorney General John Ashcroft has even declared, “Unique agree with Hauerwas would do well to carefully examine the among nations, America recognized the source of our character nature of their political involvement in light of the war on ter- as being godly and eternal, not being civil and temporal…We ror. In the wake of September 11, 2001, many bemoaned the have no king but Jesus”(59). This religiously infused Ameri- great “failure of imagination” of not anticipating and preventing can romanticism tends to exclude diverse points of view, uplift such an attack. May the church not be found guilty of its own members of the Christian Right as ideal Americans, and view failure to imagine a peaceful and hopeful alternative to the war leadership as divinely appointed. President Bush epitomized on terror. this attitude when he told Bob Woodward, “I’m the commander Matthew D. Porter; - see, I don’t need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say PhD student, Baylor University Department of Theology. things. That’s the interesting thing about being president. May-

• 47 • The Princeton Theological Review Volume XII, Number 2 be somebody needs to explain to my why they say something, protested against England. Each of these groups sought a genu- but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation” (68). ine liberalism to give freedom and liberty to disregarded mem- The specter of American Romanticism is entangled bers of society. The founding fathers harnessed this revolution- with the specter of contractual liberalism. U.S. Americans have ary spirit and then limited the freedom won from England. Taylor long claimed that they stand for the freedom and equality of proposes that people should reclaim this revolutionary heritage all human persons, yet history shows our failure to grant equal and prophetic spirit to challenge today’s oppressive policies. He rights to all people. Contractual liberalism, Taylor argues, is a suggests three categories in which the revolutionary spirit ought liberalism that only applies to a select group (cf. 77-78). The to emerge: aesthetic imagination, public enactment, and delib- presence of contractual liberalism can clearly be seen from an erative reasoning (cf. 142-147). Aesthetic imagination, in the economic point of view, although it is present in all realms. For form of the arts, creates a physical representation of the future example, the United States and many other European nations we hope to live into. Art is a powerful way of making the “not have exploited the resources and work forces of Asia, Africa, yet” present and active as a source of hope. Public enactments, and Latin America without allowing those nations to participate such as protesting, “are means for agents and movements of in the U.S. and European economic system. Taylor’s analysis revolutionary expectation to build support for their revolution- argues that in the wake of 9/11, promoters of contractual lib- ary dreams” (144). Deliberative reasoning casts a self-critical eralism joined with the promoters of American romanticism to eye upon revolutionary movements, asking such questions as safeguard themselves from critique and reform, as well as to “Is anybody being left out? Are we staying true to the ideals of preserve the current economic order. These two combined to revolutionary expectation? How can we broaden our vision?” create a nationalism that silences opponents, restricts freedom Taylor presents an insightful analysis of post- 9/11 nation- while proclaiming to defend freedom, and allows the govern- alism and politics and offers practical ways of participating in ment to operate unchecked under the banner of national security movements against the present currents of nationalism. How- (cf. 80-83). ever, the volume leaves one feeling overwhelmed by the situa- Taylor offers up a third specter as a source of recourse and tion and the work that needs to take place. There are glimmers hope in the face of the present circumstances. Instead of finding of hope on the horizon, but Americans need to pay attention to national identity in the founding fathers, who practiced contrac- their government’s policies and seek ways of actually promoting tual liberalism and had a sense of divine appointment, as seen in the ideals of freedom and justice for all. the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, U.S. Ameri- cans should look to the revolutionary spirit that gave birth to the Nicole Reibe; Revolutionary War. Various groups, such as Native Americans, M.Div. Senior, Princeton Theological Seminary, abolitionists, slaves, farmers, pirates and many others rioted and Living in Switzerland during an intensive Field Ed. placement. Marc Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of most politically decisive eras of the Israeli state. Numerous st personalities are engaged, both Jewish and otherwise, including Liberation: The Challenge of the 21 Cen- Naim Ateek (a prominent Palestinian theologian and church- tury, 3rd Ed. Baylor, TX: Baylor University man), Martin Buber, Irving Greenberg, Yitzhak Rabin, and Elie Press, 2004, pp. xviii + 260. $34.95 Wiesel. Ellis also makes extensive but judicious use of news sources and personal accounts to punctuate the historical nar- rative. “To be faithful to our ancestors, particularly those who Ellis is a skillful and thoughtful writer, and this work would have struggled, suffered and died in the Holocaust, is to well serve those who are interested in exploring the Israeli-Pal- be attentive to their cries, which must guide us. But, fidel- estinian conflict by introducing them to a voice that is heard ity to our own values and history is intimately connected even more seldom than that of the Palestinians – the voice of to the struggles for liberation of others; the brokenness Jewish protest to the history and policies of the state of Israel. of our past is betrayed, our political empowerment made One of this volume’s drawbacks is its age. suspect, when others become our victims” (2). Even though it was published only three years ago, it will necessarily contain no reference to the most recent conflicts; The above quote captures the essence of Ellis’ work in To- namely, the recent hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, and ward a Jewish Theology of Liberation. As a Jew, he seeks to the tension between Israel and Palestine with reference to the speak to his fellow Jews and to the state of Israel on the basis of Gaza strip. Jewish history, tradition and theology. His is a voice raised in protest to the suffering that the empowerment of Jews through the state of Israel has unleashed upon Palestinians. W. Travis McMaken; In order to substantiate this protest, Ellis engages in far- MDiv Senior, Princeton Theological Seminary, ranging yet careful analysis of the history of the Jewish people Book Review Editor, Princeton Theological Review, after the Holocaust, paying particular attention to what he calls Vice-Moderator, Theological Students Fellowship. “A Tradition of Dissent” (Ch. 4) that emerges in each of the

• 48 • Fall 2006 Book Reviews Vincent E. Bacote, The Spirit in Public The- sive look at the development of his public theology through ex- amining a series of public addresses given throughout his career ology: Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham (chapter 2). Although these biographical sections were perhaps Kuyper. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker only tangentially related to the themes of cosmic pneumatology Academic, 2005, pp. 176. $18.99 and public theology, they were some of the most enlightening in the book because of their insight into Kuyper’s real-life motiva- (paperback) tion for formulating his ideas about ‘common grace’ and ‘sphere sovereignty.’ In The Spirit in Public Theology, Vincent Bacote explores Kuyper certainly held to a coherent theology, but the de- the intersection of three separate themes: the work of the Spirit velopment of that theology was driven by a concrete desire to in creation, public theology, and the life and work of Dutch theo- motivate Christian citizens to action in the Netherlands (89). logian and statesman Abraham Kuyper. To explore this inter- Chapter 3 articulates the substance of Kuyper’s public section, he draws a number of other theologians into conversa- theology, beginning with an explanation of Calvin’s doctrine tion and also gives a thorough reading of Kuyper’s theology by of common grace and an analysis of Kuyper as a neo-Calvin- examining public addresses throughout his political career. By ist. Kuyper’s doctrine of common grace distinguishes between examining the peculiarities of each of the three themes carefully, saving grace, which redeems the Christian, and common grace, Bacote at first seems to distance them from each other. How- which restrains all people from sin and enables good in the ever, as he continues the reader finds that she has been learning world. In addition to differentiating between saving and com- about the intersection of the three all along, and ends up with mon grace, he also establishes a strong connection between them a richer view of this intersection and of the three themes in- by referring to creation (common grace) and re-creation (saving dividually. Also, by drawing on Kuyper’s work, Bacote finds grace) as interrelated acts of God towards humanity (100). a theology that can motivate Christians to public action and In chapter 4, Bacote can finally move to the task at hand: creation stewardship. Bacote begins by distinguishing cosmic finding the intersection between public theology, cosmic pneu- pneumatology, a focus on the Spirit’s work in the world, from a matology, and the work of Abraham Kuyper. When Kuyper pneumatology that he sees as subservient to Christology, that is, describes the work of the Holy Spirit in creation, he links it to a pneumatology that focuses only on the Spirit’s work in the re- the initial act of creation, the animation of life after creation, demption of individual human beings (19). This is certainly an and the restraint of sin. Each of these three aspects is either important distinction to make before delving into the Spirit’s im- a reason for or a function of common grace. Bacote summa- pact on public theology. Since his intent is to articulate a read- rizes, “…the Spirit’s cosmic activity is the dynamic element of ing of Abraham Kuyper for the twenty-first century, Bacote next common grace…as such, the Spirit’s work in creation can be gives a brief summary of the cosmic pneumatology of a number understood as a central yet unacknowledged force underlying of contemporary theologians. He categorizes them by describ- Kuyper’s public theology” (116). ing Geik Müller-Fahrenholz, Jürgen Moltmann, and Mark Wal- Bacote combines the work of Kuyper with that of a fellow lace as having pantheistic and panentheistic perspectives of the Dutch theologian, Arnold Van Ruler, in search of a contempo- Spirit’s immanence, while Sinclair Ferguson, Colin Gunton, and rary re-reading of Kuyper. Van Ruler helpfully uses the term Clark Pinnock emphasize “more traditionally orthodox perspec- “indwelling” to describe the work of the Spirit in creation (125). tives” (39). Bacote seeks a voice among these theologians that Bacote concludes by stating that an appropriation of Kuyper’s gives the Spirit’s role in creation an appropriate emphasis. He theology of common grace, combined with a properly strong hints that he believes that such an emphasis can be found in an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, should motivate the appropriation of Abraham Kuyper for our time. Christian to public action and humble stewardship (148). Before moving on to the constructive task, Bacote gives The Spirit in Public Theology is probably best understood a summary of two contemporary approaches to public theol- by a reader who has previously been introduced to at least one ogy. The first, as represented by Max Stackhouse, is described of the three themes of the intersection. That having been said, as “apologetic,” since it emphasizes the idea that the Christian Bacote does support his thesis with clarity, even though it in- faith should be comprehensible and life-enhancing for all peo- volves a complex interweaving of a number of themes. Also, ple. The second, as represented by Ronald Thiemann, is de- although it is evident that Bacote has a great deal of respect for scribed as “confessional,” since he emphasizes the self-identity Kuyper, he pays Kuyper the greatest respect by avoiding a blind of the community of faith in the midst of a pluralistic world (47). application of Kuyper’s thoughts onto the socio-political situa- Where does Kuyper’s public theology fall in this spectrum? tion of twenty-first century America. Rather, he reads Kuyper Because Kuyper emphasized both the antithesis between in his own context (turn-of-the-last-century Holland) and, as the Christians and the world and the common grace that God ex- subtitle indicates, “appropriates” that legacy for our world of tends to all creation, Bacote believes that Kuyper maintains a Christian thought today. tension between an apologetic and a confessional public theol- ogy (82). Bacote also includes a brief biography of Abraham Rebecca Jordan Heys; Kuyper (at the conclusion of chapter 1), as well as a more exten- MDiv Middler, Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Call for Papers: Spring 2007 Issue

You are invited to submit an article, reflection, or book review for publication in the Spring 2007 issue of the Princeton Theological Review! This issue’s theme will be Theology and the Arts. If you would like to submit an article, reflection, or book review that is pertinent to the PTR’s Spring 2007 theme, please visit www.princetontheologicalreview.org for more information. All submissions are due by January 15, 2007. Call for Papers: Fall 2007 Issue

You are invited to submit an article, reflection, or book review for publication in the Fall 2007 issue of the Princeton Theological Review! This issue’s theme will be On the Atonement. If you would like to submit an article, reflection, or book review that is pertinent to the PTR’s Fall 2007 theme, please visit www.princetontheologicalreview.org for more information. All submissions are due by September 15, 2007.

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